


Bright Eyes

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [32]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Betrayal, F/M, Family, Fatherhood, Female Harry Potter, Friendship, Master of Death Harry Potter, Murder, Time Travel, Tragedy, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 06:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 33,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15768411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: Death reenters a seemingly familiar world in 1979 and is forced to remember that he was once Harry Potter when he befriends his father as well as to remember what it means to be human.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory Note that this is Not CANON

1979

Magical London, Great Britain

 

* * *

 

The sound of fate, of tragedy, was not a dirge or a lament but instead a waltz.

 

A steady, constant beat, in three quarter time, perhaps in a minor key but insistent as it was consistent. Easy to follow even if you did not mark the melody for what it was

 

The magical society of England was slowly but surely reaching the end of its violent and gradual revolution. A revolution which had existed under many names and more than one dark lord, one which had shaken off any conclusion for decades, and only now appeared to be close to a decisive end

 

The dark lord Voldemort, a man whose very name was feared as if it was a god's, had eliminated almost all organized opposition.

 

But this is a stage, a backdrop, it is only a single stop on the line from Life to Oblivion.

 

It is at this station that Death steps off.

 

* * *

 

"Look at him, Prongs, I swear the bloke's your long-lost evil twin."

 

In the overcrowded ministry cafeteria, where you could see anyone who wasn't really anyone inside the ministry (because Malfoys and the Blacks were too good for cafeteria food even if they did frequent the ministry often enough), James Potter peered through the crowds of more or less familiar faces to find the one that was painfully unfamiliar.

 

It wasn't hard to find him.

 

James didn't know why, he was tall but not ridiculously unheard of tall like Hagrid or anything, and his hair might be a bit too dark and untamed, but it was nothing that should have immediately caught his eye.

 

In a sea of red aurors' uniforms he should have been unremarkable.

 

"Not really." James finally said, after spending a good minute looking at the bloke.

 

And it was true, whatever similarities there were they were superficial at best. They both had dark curly hair but that was about where the similarities ended. The other man was leaner, taller, somehow paler than a Malfoy without looking sickly (like he had unicorn's blood running through his veins), and his hair while similar to James somehow had a different texture (like crow's feathers).

 

He had an otherworldly almost fey look to him, even sitting inside the ministry eating in the cafeteria, enough of one that it made James hesitate to say he looked like anyone at all.

 

"You haven't gotten a good look at his face, Prongs, I just spent all morning staring at it and I swear half the time I wanted to just shout out 'Prongs' whenever I looked at him." Sirius said before taking a bite of his lunch and adding, "I think I'm going to call him Doppelprongs, like doppelganger, has a nice ominous feel to it."

 

He probably would too. James and Sirius were good enough at their jobs that they could get away with things like that, making up nicknames for the new recruits. Of course, Sirius did it more often which was why it'd taken so long for him to get promoted but he also couldn't seem to help himself.

 

"I still don't see it." James said, maybe it was the angle, or maybe it was the man's green eyes. Like Lily's but not, different than hers even if they were the same color. His were older, sharper, deeper, unnerving… He'd always loved Lily's eyes, he didn't know how he felt about this man's.

 

"Anyway, how's the life of a squad leader, captain Black?" James asked, diverting the topic away from strange men who ate by themselves in the cafeteria.

 

"Shouldn't you know already, captain Potter? You've been at this business longer than I have." Sirius said with a good-natured grin, clearly proud of this, that he had earned something for himself without being heir to the house of Black. James thought that Sirius would have changed his name if he knew it wouldn't irk his relatives more if he kept it.

 

"Well, I know what my job is like, but I want to hear about yours."

 

"Oh, well, there's a few who think I'm a snot-nosed pureblood brat but I put them back in their place like a good figure of authority. Let's see, what else… Some look like they tried a little too hard in Hogwarts and think that's prepared them for the real world, like a NEWT score means anything to the bloody dark lord."

 

At that both their faces fell, thinking of when they'd graduated, thinking the same things and barely escaping with their lives in those early confrontations with the Death Eaters. Of course, they were actively pursuing Death Eaters less and less these days, and only certain ones, never the Malfoy family. Slowly but surely the ministry was preparing to exit the war and pave a path for Voldemort and sometimes James felt like he was doing nothing but watch it happen; even when he was in the Order of the Phoenix already.

 

It just wasn't good enough.

 

"…He was an odd bloke though."

 

"Who?" James asked, startled from his thoughts and looking over at Sirius, and noted that Sirius was staring ahead at the man again with a strangely sober and thoughtful expression on his face.

 

"Doppelprongs… I don't know how to describe it, it's a bunch of little things… He didn't bring a wand." Sirius said, and James wondered why that was an afterthought, because what could have been more noticeable and weirder than that?

 

"He didn't bring a wand?"

 

Sirius shrugged and looked rather flummoxed, "Said he didn't need it, and from what I can tell… He doesn't."

 

But even powerful wizards like Dumbledore and bloody Voldemort used wands and needed them, wandless stuff was parlor tricks, that was all you could do with it. Anything more complicated and you needed a wand, at least, that's what James had always thought.

 

"No, you're not serious." James said, already aware of the pun that always followed.

 

"I'm always Sirius." Sirius said, "But in all seriousness, he is a bloody weird bloke."

 

Suddenly, the man looked up, and those green eyes cut through the sea of people straight to James and Sirius. James felt his heart almost stop, as if this man's very attention was overwhelming, but then the man smiled a slight painful quirk of the lips as if someone had told him a painfully bad pun.

 

Next to him Sirius breathed out roughly as if the air had been forced from his lungs, "See, James, what did I tell you? Bloody weird bloke."

 

"I want to talk to him." James heard himself say, distantly, and almost couldn't believe he was saying it.

 

"What? Why?" Sirius asked.

 

"He's by himself and he seems…" Interesting, James wanted to say, but that wasn't quite it. He seemed so terribly lonely, in a way that James had never seen before, as if this room filled with people and food somehow couldn't touch him at all.

 

Like he existed on a separate higher plane than the rest of them and in this moment they could only catch his shadow.

 

"No way." Sirius said, shaking his head, "I just had to spend all morning with him."

 

"You aren't scared, are you, Padfoot?" Fear wasn't for Gryffindors after all, and definitely not for an auror or a member of the Order. Two years ago Sirius would die before he would admit he was afraid of anything, now fear was exclusively saved for battle and death, and not introductions.

 

"Bloody hell, I'm not scared!"

 

"Then we should go and talk to him." James said, standing and picking up his tray, watching as the man's smile dropped and his eyebrows raised as if he too was questioning James' sanity.

 

James started walking, listening to Sirius' blustering and cursing from behind him, and soon enough he and Sirius were sitting down across from the man. Closer he was still intimidating, practically radiating power and some otherworldliness, but looking at his expression at his posture it was clear that he was just as out of his element as James himself was.

 

There was something so uncertain and adorable about him that hadn't been visible at a distance.

 

"So, I'm James Potter and you've met Sirius Black this morning." James said, motioning to Sirius who was still looking dubious, "We're both auror captains."

 

"Yes, I see." His voice was soft, on the higher side, but somehow it still drew attention as if he had been shouting.

 

"We went to Hogwarts together, Gryffindor alums, the best house if I do say so myself. You a Hogwarts bloke?" James asked, although he felt the answer was no, if only because the man didn't look too much older or younger than them and James felt like he would have remembered a Doppelprongs.

 

"No, I… self-studied." He said, pausing before the last bit, as if it wasn't quite what he would have liked to say.

 

"Sirius here also seriously implied that you only use wandless magic." James said before adding, "He also wants to call you Doppelprongs."

 

"Merlin's balls, James, you can't just go telling people…" Sirius said with a look of panic but James cut him off soon enough.

 

"Oh, layoff Sirius, if you can't tell someone their name to their face then you shouldn't go around calling them names. You know that." They'd never bothered to call Snivilus Severus in person after all.

 

"Ah, well, to the first I once used a wand but at this point I find it easier not to. To the second, you can call me Doppelprongs if you'd like, I don't really have opinions concerning names." That small smile was back, the one that looked like it'd been wrangled out of him unwillingly, and it was good to know the man had a sense of humor at the very least.

 

"But what's your actual name? You know, for reference, in case we're at a fancy lunch together and I can't get away with calling you Doppelprongs." James asked watching as the twitching smile became a little bigger.

 

For a while the man hesitated though, as if this was a question he truly had to think about, and finally replied in a tone that almost seemed sorrowful, "Harry."

 

"Harry, that's a good name, very non-pretentious, I like it." James actually had a bit of a weakness for muggle names. When he and Lily had kids he'd probably lean towards the muggle side, he just couldn't take a kid named Romulus or Jove seriously, he wouldn't be able to take himself seriously. That, and, it seemed important to remind people that muggles existed these days and muggleborns did too.

 

A traditional pureblood name could wait until the day that Lily could walk down the streets of Diagon Alley without needing her wand at the ready.

 

And there was that smile on Harry's face, a small sad thing, one that wrenched at the heart and left it bleeding quietly, unnoticed.

 

"Are you muggleborn, then?" James asked and then took it back with a look of alarm, "I just mean that it's not a traditional name for someone from an old wizard family. Not that I should talk, I'm James after all."

 

"In a sense, I grew up with muggles, but I'm… quite foreign at any rate so terms like that don't really apply anymore." The man said with a shrug, not explaining where he was from or why he was only muggleborn in a sense.

 

"Oh, well, what are you doing here in England then?" James asked, and why an auror if he wasn't British, James hadn't even known non-British citizens could become aurors. Although if the man was good enough not to need a wand James could see why the department would take him anyway.

 

"I always seem to come back to England, as if I just can't help myself." He said, as if this was a joke that James should find hilarious.

 

"Right, well, that was a great non-explanation, Doppelprongs." Sirius said, "Do you enjoy being mysteriously cryptic all the time?"

 

"I'm told it's one of my few charms." The man said, drily, as if he was perfectly serious and for a moment James couldn't help but envy that sort of a poker face. James always ended up laughing at his own jokes, it was how he always got caught for pranks back in school.

 

"I used to live in England, a long time ago, but I didn't believe I would ever come back." The man elaborated, the smile drifting and something lost taking its place, as if he still wasn't quite sure he really was in England, "When I found myself in London I thought I might turn back to familiar roots."

 

"You mean the auror corps?" James asked and the man nodded.

 

"Among other things." The man said, neither confirming nor denying if he'd ever been in the aurors before. Although James doubted it, it was hard to tell the man's age, he had one of those faces that seemed to defy the aging process and eyes that looked way too old but he wouldn't guess above thirty.

 

He wouldn't have been old enough to say things about being an auror a very long time ago if that were the case.

 

"Well, you're damn good, if what I've seen this morning is anything to go by." Sirius admitted, as if it was painful for him to say, but he still admitted it which went a long way to say something about Harry's skill level.

 

"Thank you" Harry said, as if genuinely surprised that Sirius had gone out of his way to complement him.

 

"Don't thank me yet, wait til you're in the field. Believe me, it's a whole different quidditch game out there." Sirius said but the man only smiled, not intimidated at all, and still looked quite pleased by what Sirius had said.

 

"Has anyone told you that you're bloody weird?" Sirius finally blurted and at the question Harry broke out into wild laughter, brighter and lighter than any of his expressions before.

 

"No, I'm afraid not. Not for a very long time." He said, between dying chuckles, as if Sirius was still being hopelessly and unintentionally hilarious when, for once, he was actually being serious.

 

Green eyes drifted to the clock hung on the wall, a great ornate timepiece that had probably cost someone far too many galleons, and said, "I think your staff meeting's soon, you'd best be on your way.”

 

"Bloody hell!" James looked at the clock and realized Harry (no last name apparently), was right and that he and Sirius had better start walking. Although, he had no idea how Harry would have known that.

 

"Well, sorry to be abrupt, but Sirius and I really need to get going. Sirius will see you later and I'll see you… Lunch, tomorrow?" James asked, and the man looked at him with a stunned and tender expression, as if he had never expected James to seek him out again, slowly he nodded.

 

"Yes, lunch tomorrow."

 

"Good, great, excellent, we'll see you then, Doppelprongs."

 

And then he and Sirius were on their way, bickering all the while about recruits, wandlessness, and whether or not there was such a thing as being too bloody weird to function.

 

* * *

 

He remained an odd man, a friend, but one James would never quite understand.

 

And sometimes James swore that in a single glance Harry could see everything James had ever done or was even capable of doing, and that he found something about that sight heartbreakingly sorrowful, because his smile was always such a bitter thing.

 

It made him seem old, older than Dumbledore even.

 

But there were times when he didn't seem ancient and untouchable, but instead was this young uncertain guy who'd been living alone too long and didn't know how to deal with people but wanted to try anyway. He always smiled at James' stories about Lily, about the family they planned to have, about Hogwarts, quidditch, and all the best and brightest parts of England in the middle of a war.

 

He knew everything about anything, muggle and wizard alike, had wandered the world and seen all of its wonders and more.

 

And he was one of the only people James had ever met who really did believe that Voldemort wouldn't win, not that he couldn't be allowed to, but that he wouldn't.

 

"Ultimately, for all of his quest for immortality, the dark lord is an inherently short sighted man." They were at lunch that day, Sirius somewhere else, and even with everyone around them and the crowds somehow it felt as if he and Harry were completely alone, "By trying to rule through hatred, fear, and death alone he can't hold or even grasp the country. It will slip through his fingertips and he will be left only with his misery and self-loathing."

 

Voldemort, Harry predicted, would destroy himself.

 

Sirius never really did get comfortable with him though. Never got past that off putting inhuman-ness that just clung to him. Not that James really did either he just…tolerated it better and learned to look past it.

 

Because in a ministry cafeteria it didn't really mean anything.

 

Doppelprongs could be as doppelprongish as he liked but nothing would actually happen. They would just eat their lunch and go on their merry way. It was like they could all pretend that Harry was just a regular old guy, Harry included.

 

But James wasn't his captain and it was much different to see Harry eating lunch than to see Harry in the field.

 

And James would be reminded of that.

 

* * *

 

None of them said anything or made any movement, they all just stood there, dazed, letting the scene sink in and imprint itself in their collective memories.

 

There was a light drizzle, smoke from the recently burned building, the slight tang of magic in the air, and then there was Harry standing over the corpse of the infamous Death Eater, and Sirius' cousin, Bellatrix.

 

This was the first time James ever saw Harry Evans out in the field.

 

Sirius had said, jokingly at lunch one day, that the man was a monster.

 

James now knew what he meant, and he knew that it hadn't been entirely a joke either.

 

Because the moment they had apparated in, with a twitch of his fingers the man had brought up apparition wards, then he had been sprinting and dodging sickly green light as if he was born to dance between spells, and then before they could even blink Bellatrix's wand had snapped and her mask had been torn off and there was a knife in her chest.

 

And Harry stood there, his hand still on the knife handle, blood dripping from his fingertips down his wrists and into his clothing, and then he let her body fall to the pavement and the knife disappeared from his hand as if it never existed in the first place.

 

And that was the end of her, Voldemort's mad dog, and Sirius' bitch of a cousin.

 

Disarmed and slaughtered by a man who did not even bother to wear the auror's standard uniform to work, who instead had taken to wearing an old muggle military uniform, a bright crimson thing with brass buttons and golden medals, with high black boots and white pants now stained with blood.

 

"Easier to move in", he'd said when Sirius had asked before adding, "I would have preferred black but it seemed like you would appreciate red."

 

Black, so that moving he'd look like a raven in flight, or like death itself. Instead, instead he was red, and looked like something entirely inhuman.

 

Something ancient, great, and terrible.

 

And all James could do was stand there, just as dumb as the rest of them, without words in his mouth and only horror behind his fogging glasses.

 

"Why?" This was Sirius, and it was pained, because Sirius had talked about this moment himself for a very long time. He talked about Bellatrix's death in a way that he didn't talk about his brother's, because Bellatrix had gone insane, she had become a thing so evil that it was barely human anymore.

 

Saint Mungos was overflowing with only half her victims and the cemeteries with the other.

 

Harry didn't answer, just stared off into the distance as if none of them were truly there, looking past the burnt shop and slaughtered bodies Bellatrix herself had left behind. Past England, past Europe, past the whole world and into the endless horizon.

 

"Why did you… I mean I know why, that's why we came but… Why?" Sirius asked, failing to ask what he really wanted, why he had done it with a knife, why it had seemed so quick and brutal and easy. Why Sirius himself was so bothered, when he had written off his entire family years ago, or thought he had.

 

Harry Evans still said nothing.

 

"The others, you didn't do this with the others, they all went back to Azkaban they didn't…" Die, Harry Evans had never gone out of his way to kill anyone besides Bellatrix before now, hadn't seemed remotely inclined to do so.

 

"Diodorus Siculus relates the story of a broken and scattered god; who of us has never felt, while walking through the twilight or writing a date from his past, that something infinite has been lost?" The words almost seemed to echo, to resound throughout the streets, as if the very stones and rain had stopped themselves to listen.

 

(That sounded like a quote, sometimes Harry would quote things, but always James felt as if he was missing something as if the words meant far more than what they actually said. As if in the moment he heard them he had already failed to grasp them.)

 

"That was… more personal than I expected. I'd thought I'd gotten over that." Finally, Harry turned, that ageless ancient and terrible expression on his face again, as if he was a faerie king whose kingdom had succumb to iron rot rather than a mere mortal man, "I am sorry."

 

Harry, James thought as he stared at his friend (a man he now realized he knew nothing about), and he realized why Harry had seemed so sad when he said it.

 

It didn't suit him, not in the slightest.

 

* * *

 

The first time James saw Harry outside of work was only a week or so after the incident.

 

James and Sirius had started avoiding him, going outside the ministry into Diagon Alley to eat instead, and James did feel bad about it because even though he had discovered that Harry Evans terrified him he also still was a friend.

 

A quiet friend like he'd never really had before. Like an older, wiser, and healthier version of Moony, who had complete and utter confidence in his own abilities and only hesitated when it came to others.

 

James hadn't realized he'd wanted a friend like that, needed one, needed someone to balance out Sirius' unhinged bouts of temper, Remus' lycanthropy and growing depression, and Peter's fear and desperate need to please James and Sirius as if they were all still back in bloody Hogwarts.

 

But Harry Evans also terrified him in a way that even the dark lord hadn't managed yet.

 

And so James had turned his head away and thought that, with Harry's passiveness and willing to let people come and go, Harry would let him be and they would fade from each other's lives.

 

But that didn't happen, instead, one weekend morning as James was doing shopping for Christmas in Diagon Alley, Harry came to him.

 

"I really am sorry."

 

He was dressed in black, just like he'd promised. In dark foreign robes, the kind that you might see in the desert, that had probably once been bright and rich colors but had been bathed in shadows. In the light snowfall, with flakes trapped in his hair like stars, and his eyes that piercing all-seeing green he looked as if he hadn't been born on Earth at all.

 

He somehow made the overzealous Christmas decorations look even more ridiculous just by standing next to them.

 

"About Bellatrix?" James asked, taking a breath and seeing her corpse in his head, remembering how Harry had been during the inquisition (not that there had been much of them because at that point no one had been exactly keen on seeing Bellatrix alive), and how Harry had only flatly replied that Azkaban was death in its most brutal and horrific form.

 

"Yes, about Bellatrix." Harry repeated with that soft, sad, smile that he liked to wear.

 

"I'm not," James said banishing the images from his head and trying to see only what was in front of him and not what he was so terribly afraid of, "I, it was… brutal but I'm not sorry. She was evil, Harry. I know she is… was, Sirus' cousin, but there was nothing good left in her. Only madness and death. So when you killed her, it was because we couldn't, because we hadn't before. And I can't think of how many people you have saved…"

 

"Fifty-six." Harry interjects, softly.

 

"What?"

 

"Fifty-six people for the life of one woman."

 

How did he know that?

 

Did he see it in their shadows, the lives of everyone they touched, everyone they destroyed? Did he see it in their eyes?

 

James had always suspected that Harry Evans wasn't human, wasn't human in a way that went far beyond vampires or veelas or even centaurs, but even at his most human (when he was standing in the middle of the street saying numbers) he was almost blinding for his inhumanity.

 

"Right, a lot of people." James responded weakly, instead, and in that weakness he must have answered some unspoken question of Harry's because all at once it was as if a shutter had been closed over his eyes.

 

"I wanted you to know that I've decided to leave the aurors." Harry said, like he was the commander of the aurors himself, with unquestionable authority.

 

"Leave the aurors, but why?" He was good, better than James and Sirius, in time he would surpass them. There'd already been talk of promotion after the Bellatrix incident, of making him a captain.

 

"It's not important, I just thought you should know, in case you did decide to look for me again." Harry said, and then held out his hand, the one that had the scars reading 'I must not tell lies' that James had never had the courage to ask about.

 

"You can't leave!" James said, before he even knew what he was saying, "I won't let you!"

 

And Harry gave him this look, an almost human thing that reminded him so much of Moony, that seemed to ask why James seemed so upset when James had been the one to push him out the door in the first place.

 

Suddenly, there it was, the thought.

 

Harry was like Moony, he was dangerous, and he could probably kill James anytime he wanted, but that had never stopped James before. Because underneath that terrifying power, the blood on his hands, and the all too easy way he'd disposed of a woman no one had been able to touch before he was a good man and a friend.

 

Gryffindors did not cast aside their friends simply because they were afraid.

 

"I won't let you! It doesn't matter what you are or where you came from or where you even think you're going. We're friends and James Potter sticks by his bloody friends through thick and thin and they stick by him. And that's the end of it, all there is, and it means that you can't leave the aurors or England or anywhere else. You have to stay, right here with me, until the end of the line."

 

"Until the end of the line?" Harry repeated, uncertainly, as if that resonated with him more than anything else. And then slowly, painfully, a true smile broke out on his face, "Yes, I… until the very end, my friend.”

 

* * *

 

They became closer after that, soon enough James was inviting Harry over to his house, taking him shopping and groaning in exasperation when Harry continued to wear black, black, and nothing but black on his days off.

 

It was a wonder he even bothered to wear that red muggle uniform to work.

 

"Are you dressing for someone's muggle funeral, Harry?" James asked, when the man appeared on his doorstep, looking dazed as ever in his usual black outfit, the one that looked like it had been worn for decades at least.

 

"Well, in a sense." Harry said in that vague infuriating way of his, like it was an answer, but only if you knew exactly what he was talking about which James never did, "Mostly out of tradition. People expect me to wear black… Sometimes white I suppose, but I never looked any good in white."

 

Lily liked him, "He's sweet, James. Plus, we share a last name, that has to be a good omen, right?"

 

Lily, clearly, had never seen Harry Evans slaughter Bellatrix like she was a muggle pig. James could call Harry many things, but sweet wasn't one of them.

 

He was a good man though, an uncommonly good one, the kind of good you didn't see in every day ordinary men like Sirius and James. He'd help Lily with charms work or potions whenever he came over, as well as dinner and anything else needed, he brought gifts that were personal and picked out with clear care.

 

After meeting Harry, James realized that actual Gryffindor qualities, nobility, valiance, bravery, were actually quite rare. Harry had them in spades, so much that he almost seemed to glow with the force of them.

 

He would never be a Marauder, even if the others had gotten as close as James had (which they didn't) he couldn't, but he didn't need to be.

 

Harry could just be mysterious, powerful, all-knowing, ancient Harry and James was perfectly fine with that.

 

Someone he could trust to watch out for Lily while James was out on a longer hunt, or doing a mission for the Order, in a way that he just couldn't trust anyone else. Even Sirius, because Harry would win, could go in for that killing blow, where even Sirius might falter.

 

(The war, meanwhile, trudged onwards and Voldemort's impending victory seemed more and more inevitable.

 

In London, the houses of muggleborns burned with their children still screaming inside of it.)

 

* * *

 

1980.

 

* * *

 

"Harry, you know I'm in a resistance group, don't you?"

 

It was one of the few times he was at Harry's apartment, a strange surreal world filled with extension charms and trapped starlight, as well as mountains of books many of which were not in English or any familiar European language.

 

James had been meaning to ask Harry to join the Order of the Phoenix for some time now.

 

"You, Lily, and Sirius." Harry responded, and James didn't know when he had let any of this slip but it was hardly surprising either, Harry just seemed to know everything.

 

"And many of my other friends from Hogwarts too." James said before adding, "It's called the Order of the Phoenix, Albus Dumbledore is the head. I think you should join."

 

In that single instant of hesitation, the way Harry paused, his eyes flicking away from James', James' knew that he was going to say no.

 

"Harry, please, you know the aurors are worthless. That they only put away or deal with those that have gone way too far, like Bellatrix, that they'll never stop the heart of his movement. They'll never go after Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, or anyone else." And it pained him to say this, to admit that the government had failed them, would continue to fail them but it was true. James was living it, watching every day as the corruption grew worse and the death toll grew higher.

 

"I do not think Albus Dumbledore would appreciate my involvement." Harry said, a quiet murmur, as if it was more of an aside than an actual response.

 

"What are you talking about? Of course he would. Harry, you're a better duelist than me and Sirius combined! You don't even need a wand! Plus, he's Albus Dumbledore, my old headmaster, believe me when I say that he's one of the wisest and…"

 

"There are many things you don't know about Albus Dumbledore." Harry cut him off, abruptly, his eyes sharp like daggers, "And while perhaps he might appreciate my prowess he would not appreciate my involvement."

 

For a moment James didn't say anything, because while it was true that he didn't know Dumbledore, didn't really know his history he knew that Dumbledore might just be the only man left in Britain to fight off Voldemort and win. Or, perhaps he was, until Harry Evans had arrived.

 

"He wouldn't care, not if you helped, not if you…"

 

"James!" Harry said, and the force of his words caused James to go silent, to wonder if he'd ever heard Harry that loud before, "I have been a weapon, James, I have played the part of the tool in organizations like this before. It never ends well and I will never do it again, so don't ask."

 

Licking his lips, all of his rational arguments dying, James uttered his most desperate plea, "Harry, Lily is muggleborn. My wife is muggleborn and she's only twenty years old. Please, Harry, join."

 

There was a great sigh, as if Harry was indulging some whining toddler, "Alright, James, I'll join the Order of the Bleeding Phoenix. God help us all though, I will need to be very drunk for this first meeting."

 

* * *

 

"You invited Doppelprongs, Merlin's balls James, why would you do that?" Sirius was not thrilled by James' decision.

 

"He's the best bloody duelist I know so don't you Merlin's balls me, Sirius!" James responded, "We need anyone we can get who…"

 

"He's not even British, how can we trust him, how can we trust a man who can kill someone so easily!"

 

"It was Bellatrix, Sirius, he had a very good reason for what he did and…"

 

"It could have been someone else, James! How do we know it's just Bellatrix? How does someone get that good that young without practicing? We know nothing about him…"

 

"I trust him!"

 

"Well, that makes everything perfect then, doesn't it?"

 

Looking around the room, at even those who had only seen Harry at a distance or had only heard stories, James could tell that Sirius' opinion was more or less shared. Maybe not Molly, who had sent the man flowers when she heard he had killed Bellatrix, but never the less they seemed uncertain and wary.

 

It was that moment that Harry chose to show up, in his usual, black, ridiculous wardrobe which was only marginally worse than his makeshift auror's uniform.

 

"Harry, good to see you, don't you own anything else to wear?" James asked, and he did, because he'd made Harry buy it but Harry must have thrown it out because he never ever wore it.

 

"James," Harry said and then moved over to Lily, giving her a brief hug, "Lily."

 

"Harry, glad you could come, James told me you were joining."

 

"Yes, well, James was very persuasive." Was all Harry said to that, a little tersely, making it all too clear that he thought this was as great of an idea as Sirius did.

 

Everyone was staring, it was probably their first time seeing him, or at least seeing him up close. And up close Harry tended to be more dramatic and alarming than at a distance as if that inhuman edge was only magnetized by proximity. James could see everyone's fingers twitching for their wands at the very sight of him.

 

Of course, that was why they needed Harry, and he'd make them see that and see it the way he did. Because with Harry they might just be able to beat back the majority of the Death Eaters, and without his cronies then maybe Dumbledore could finally hunt down and defeat Voldemort himself.

 

"Am I supposed to…" Harry started and James remembered that they were all still standing in the middle of the entryway.

 

"Right, right, in the living room on one of the couches."

 

Harry nodded and made his way into the living room, seemingly oblivious to the way the order members parted like the red sea from that muggle bible passage Lily sometimes would reference.

 

Thankfully he had been joking when he said he'd come drunk, or at least, that's what James thought until he saw Harry sit on one of the couches and pull out a silver flask of what smelled like firewhisky. Apparently, he was just planning to drink his way through the meeting.

 

And everyone was staring in silence.

 

"Harry," James said his eyes locked on the silver as he slid in behind Harry and pulled Lily down with him, "Is that really necessary?"

 

"Extremely." Harry responded, taking a large gulp with his eyes closed, and then letting out a worn sigh not even paying any attention to any of the order members who were now looking at him with open mouths.

 

"Harry, are you… James, is he drinking?" Lily asked, as if James would have some explanation of why Harry did what he did. Which was funny because if James had learned anything over the time he'd known Harry it was that he knew almost nothing about him.

 

The less you assumed you knew about Harry Evans the better.

 

"I agreed to come, I did not agree to not be thrown out for indecent behavior." Harry explained before taking another, thankfully somewhat smaller, drink from the flask.

 

"Wait, I thought you wanted to join… If you didn't want to join why did you tell James you'd come?" Lily, bless her beautiful heart, was trying to be quiet but in the dead silence even a whisper sounded deafening.

 

"James was extremely persuasive." Harry said and then rubbed a hand through his hair and finally looked at their audience, "Please, let's just start, the sooner we do this the sooner we get this over with."

 

They all shuffled in, Sirius taking the seat on the other side of Harry, looking a bit twitchy as he did so and everyone else (including Moony and Peter) sitting as far away as they could so that one side of the room was squished with people and the other was almost completely empty.

 

And James had the great epiphany that he probably could have used when he asked Harry in the first place that this wasn't going to work in any way shape or form.

 

For the first part of the meeting, while they waited for Dumbledore to show up, Moody just ran through some of the non-sensitive updates and asked for the usual update of what was going on in the auror department and in the wizengamot.

 

Then it came time for introductions.

 

"So, James brought you." Moody started, his one eye narrowing in on Harry and the other eye spinning wildly, even more than usual. And as the interrogation started everyone in the room grew alert, and silent, hardly daring to breathe.

 

"Yes." Harry said, finally lowering the goddamn flask and gaining a sharp glint to his own eyes, "He believed I might be of some assistance to you and your cause."

 

"Us and our cause, so it isn't yours then?" Moody asked, rhetorically because he continued, "Harry Evans, age twenty-three, muggleborn from Ireland, is that right?"

 

"That is what my documents say." Harry responded, which was carefully neither a yes nor a no response.

 

"Funny, you don't sound Irish."

 

"I'm good with languages and accents." Harry said, in a very authentic Irish accent, just as authentic as his normal English one was.

 

"Right, I'm sure. I've heard about you, they say you're the best auror the department's ever seen. That you killed Bellatrix LeStrange in under five minutes and incapacitated every other dark wizard you've ever met in under ten at maximum. They say you don't use a wand and that you're eccentric as all hell. The funny thing is, I've been around long enough to know that you hear about people like that long before they're twenty-three and in your auror department. So where are you really from and what are you really doing here?"

 

"That's irrelevant." Harry said with a small smile almost smug smile as if Moody had asked all the wrong questions, "And I doubt someone like you would find it particularly interesting."

 

"You might be surprised." Moody responded.

 

"I also might not." The smile grew slightly crooked and a little wider as if they were still veering way off course, "It's a very long story and I don't really like telling it."

 

"Then why should we let you into the Order?" Moody said, finally cutting to the chase, "I know where everyone in this room came from, I know where their parents came from, I know the names of their kids. For all we know you could be a dark wizard spy."

 

And Harry started laughing hysterically as if the long awaited punchline had finally been delivered. And once again James was just staring at him wondering what the hell was going through his head because James had no idea, he just knew that Harry laughing wasn't a good thing, and that it meant there was something awful going on that only he could see.

 

And that the joke was on them.

 

"True, I suppose I could be. But then, perhaps not." Harry stopped laughing, controlled himself, and leaned forward, "The world is a very complicated place and I've found that dividing it into us versus them is usually insufficient. To tell the truth, Alistair Moody, I have very little interest in joining the Order of the Phoenix. And I think, if you had your way, that you would have very little interest in having me join."

 

But, ultimately, Moody wasn't the one in charge.

 

If they hadn't wanted Harry in the order, thought he was completely untrustworthy, then they never would have let James bring him to any meeting, even a small one like this. True, only known Order members were here, the ones Voldemort had already battled and marked, but never the less they had taken him to one of their locations and that meant that they did want him.<\p><p>"Unfortunately, I am very good at what I do and have been doing it for a very long time. We also share more or less common interests."

 

"And what does that mean?"

 

"It means while I'm certainly no fan of Albus Dumbledore I like Voldemort even less." Harry said this as if it was physically painful for him and left a sour taste in his mouth. "I'll cut this short and get to the chase, if…"

 

Before Harry could cut to the chase the green fire flared brightly, as sign that someone was coming through the floo, and everyone turned just in time to see Albus Dumbledore walk in, "Terribly sorry, you know how those meetings run over."

 

Whatever Harry was going to say was lost as he instead narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore, leaning back in his chair, and looking the same way he would before field work as an auror. A restless tension and preparation for battle.

 

James felt himself tense at the very atmosphere, fearing that Harry might just fly off the handle, he hadn't since that Bellatrix incident but James really didn't know. All he knew was that Harry, for whatever inexplicable insane reason, really didn't like Dumbledore.

 

James didn't really understand it, Dumbledore was a great man let alone a great wizard, and really the last hope for the country. Not to mention the man had always looked out for him, even when he was still in school, it was hard to imagine any light wizard having a reason to dislike him.

 

Especially one like Harry who had probably never even met Dumbledore.

 

When James had asked Harry had just given him a strained, fake, smile and said, "I have an aversion to meddling old men who have a fondness for chess and sacrificing pawns."

 

"I hope I'm not too late for introductions, Harry Evans, since I heard you would be joining us here today." Albus said before taking a seat next to Moody, his eyes sparkling behind the half-moon spectacles.

 

For a moment Harry said nothing, and in that moment James swore he could see the shadows stretching across the floor and the room grow colder, but then the moment was gone and Harry looked almost apathetic, "No, Alistair Moody and I were simply agreeing that while we don't particularly like each other we can perhaps reach some common ground."

 

"Ah, I see, and what common ground is that, Mr. Evans?" Dumbledore asked.

 

"What's your goal here?" Harry asked, seemingly randomly.

 

"I'm sorry?" Dumbledore asked, "I don't quite understand."

 

"Is it to kill Voldemort, to save Britain, to protect and promote those who are muggleborn?" Harry asked before continuing, "I will be honest, the first is simplest."

 

"You believe you can kill Voldemort so easily?" Dumbledore asked, gravely, all signs of merriment gone from his features.

 

"Yes, but that is not the same as saving Britain which in turn is not the same as protecting muggleborns." Harry leaned forward, his eyes equally as sober as Dumbledore's and twice as daring, "So, which is it?"

 

"If you could defeat Voldemort then that is all you would need to do and we could work towards these other goals you mention." Dumbledore said and almost immediately James could tell it was the wrong answer, not because it made Harry angrier, but that it seemed to make him relieved. As if all of his expectations had just been fulfilled.

 

"Well, then, I'm afraid we have less common ground than I thought." Harry stood and looked down at James and Lily with an apologetic (but not too apologetic) smile, "I had hoped I would get thrown out for drunkenness before this point but it seems that we'll all have to be disappointed. James, Lily, you know how to reach me. Sirius, I'll see you at work."

 

And with a great bang Harry Evans was gone leaving the empty seat on the couch in his wake and a surprised Lily and James behind.

 

* * *

 

"Evans!" James barged into Harry's apartment, ignoring the way that Harry seemed to be ignoring him, reading some thick book that James would probably find hopelessly boring.

 

"Hello James," Harry said distractedly, not even bothering to look up from the page, only twitching his hand and causing another chair to appear, "How are you? Take a seat why don't you?"

 

James didn't take the seat though, instead he strode over to Harry, and with a great slam shut the book between his fingers and forced Harry to look at him.

 

"I can't believe you, I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one!"

 

"I am the mysterious one, James. I hate responsibility." And he gave James a charming smile as if that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

 

"You hate responsibility more than you hate Death Eaters?!"

 

Harry thought for a moment, looking pensive, before in a somewhat surprised tone answered, "Yes, I actually do."

 

It would have been funny if it had been about anything else. As it was James had been seeing red ever since Harry had disappeared from the meeting and even Lily hadn't gotten him to calm down, especially Lily, because as much as he hated to say it somehow Harry was the only one he really trusted.

 

He and Sirius just didn't have that much experience, Peter had none, and Remus had his own problems to deal with. Beyond that people had their own families or causes to look after and James had thought Harry would understand why James was asking him to do this. Beyond just saving England itself, beyond getting rid of the Death Eaters, he thought Harry had gotten it.

 

"I won't join the Order of the Phoenix, James, but if you do need my help then all you need to do is ask. But I won't work under Albus Dumbledore." Harry said with a sigh before motioning to the chair again, "Please sit down, you're making this all needlessly dramatic."

 

"Is that what this is about, Dumbledore?" James asked, "What is your problem with him? He's a great man, whatever you've heard isn't true, but I have no idea what you've heard and…"

 

"Remember how I said Bellatrix was personal?" Harry started and then with a dark expression added, "Dumbledore is personal."

 

"Do you even know Dumbledore?"

 

"I know him intimately, he doesn't know me, I'd like to keep it that way." Which could mean anything because at this point James had long since given up interpreting anything Harry said.

 

(The scar on Harry's hand, James learned, was more or less accurate. Harry didn't lie, didn't even twist context, he'd just only hand out partial information that made no real sense out of context.

 

It was unbelievably frustrating.)

 

"Then you're fine with him winning?" James said, finally moving back to that chair and sitting in it, feeling something fade inside him and leave an empty hollowness in its place.

 

"There's always more than two sides. Just because I'm not on Albus Dumbledore's side does not mean I'm on Voldemort's. And besides, we've been over this, Voldemort can't win this war."

 

Can't, not won't, but can't as if it was impossible for him to.

 

"If I ask for your help, will you really give it?"

 

"I promise." Harry said, "Anything I can do to help, I will, but I won't join the Order."

 

"Well, then, that's good I guess." James said, not really sure how to feel about it, to meet someone who wasn't afraid of Voldemort but wasn't willing to join the Order either, someone who talked about a third side rather than just two like James had always thought.

 

"So, what is it you want, if it's not what Dumbledore wants or what the dark lord wants?" James asked, realizing that he'd never really asked Harry this question before.

 

"What do I want?"

 

"Well, He Who Must Not be Named wants to overthrow the ministry and kill all the muggleborns and expel the from Hogwarts. Dumbledore wants to stop that. What about you?"

 

For a moment Harry just looked stunned, like he wasn't quite sure how to answer the question, finally he said hesitantly as if the idea was only just now occurring to him, "I… I would like to abolish the Statute of Secrecy."

 

And that had not been what James was expecting.

 

"What?"

 

"It's not very old, only a few centuries, and it's already falling apart. It's not sustainable, it relies on the manipulation of memories, and even that won't work forever. Better to prepare for it now than to have it happen later." Harry said, as if he was saying logical things, and hadn't just said that they should go rejoin the muggles like it was a thing that anyone would want to do.

 

"Why?" James asked, truly flabbergasted.

 

"You wouldn't understand, you're stuck in your time, James." Harry said, seeming annoyed by this fact, "Obliviate really should be considered unforgivable, if we are what we remember then it's like killing someone by inches. I've never liked the idea of it and I never will."

 

"But then… the muggles!" James said, not quite sure what he was trying to say, only that it involved muggles who were a lot different than muggleborns. James might not advocate slaughtering them but that didn't mean he thought they should all sit around a fire place drinking tea together either.

 

"The muggles, James, are not so different from you are I." Harry said and then shrugged stiffly, "But, it doesn't really matter, because I don't really intend on pursuing it anyway. So you all can have your Statute of Secrecy, the oversized department of memory correction, and run about like headless chickens when you find that surprise, surprise, the muggles found out your dirty little secrets. It is no longer my problem."

 

"Right, well, any other great ideas?"

 

"Well, I don't really like the ministry all that much, so I suppose I wouldn't mind if someone overthrew it and…" Harry trailed off looking sheepish at James' alarmed expression and quickly said, "But again, I have no real flair for politics and am a bit of a radical and this is why we don't talk about my opinions."

 

"Yeah, don't do that, please, I sort of like the government and my job… I think we should stick to the safe common ground of disliking Voldemort."

 

"Yes, that… That sounds good."

 

They stared at each other in more or less awkward silence.

 

"So, would you like some tea?" Harry asked, abruptly.

 

"Right, yes, tea would be great. I'd love tea."

 

Neither of them moved.

 

* * *

 

"She's going to be a little princess! Isn't that great, Harry? My own firstborn little girl, I'll bet she looks just like Lily."

 

James had been telling everyone he could find, first when they'd found out Lily was pregnant, and now when they'd had the gender confirmed. James just wanted to tell everyone, let everyone know that this beautiful little unborn girl was going to be his daughter, the heir to the Potter house.

 

When Lily had told him, when he'd realized they were going to have a family, he'd felt like the war had somehow slipped away and that everything was right and perfect and normal again.

 

Harry's first reaction, to the news of a baby, had been bittersweet and painfully awkward. At first he'd seemed somewhat alarmed, spilling coffee onto himself, but then had forced himself into something congratulatory.

 

But Harry had always been a little weird and James had learned not to take it personally.

 

"A girl?" Harry asked his eyebrows raising and stopping in the middle of the street out of shock seemingly oblivious to the shoppers pushing past him, "Are you sure it's a girl?"

 

"A lovely little flower." James said, a grin on his face, he hadn't really preferred one gender over another but now that it was decided he just couldn't picture anything else.

 

That was part of the reason why he had pulled Harry along for this little shopping trip, to buy adorable baby girl items, and just see how awkward it made Harry look to be dressed in black but inspecting pink items.

 

"You're positive that it's a girl." Harry repeated, grabbing onto James arm and pulling him back before he could continue to walk through the alley.

 

"Yes, yes, it's a girl." James said before asking, "Why, do you think it should be a boy? I wouldn't think you were that old fashioned."

 

"No, no, I have no problem with… I guess I'm just surprised."

 

"Why, it's fifty-fifty, isn't it?"

 

"No, no reason just…" Harry trailed off, looking at a nearby window and staring in suspicion at his own reflection in the glass.

 

"Right, well, anyway, it's a girl. And I need some help deciding on names. Lily says everyone in her family's named after flowers but really, I sat down and thought about it, and most flowers are terrible. I mean you have Rose, which just sounds too old fashioned, Marigold which is too long, and then you have ones like Rhododendron. Little Rhododendron, we could call her Rhoddy, or Dendron, both are equally unpleasant." It would be practically setting her up for girls to call her names behind her back, which, having been a master of transforming names into insults James did not want to give anyone undue ammunition.

 

"I was… I was terrible at naming children." Harry said, almost looking panicked.

 

"Nonsense, you'll do…" And then Harry's words caught up to him.

 

He hadn't known Harry for very long, only a few years, and looking at his face it was hard to imagine but at the same time… At the same time, he wondered if Harry hadn't once had a wife, had children, and if he had why he had never brought them up and if they weren't buried somewhere.

 

He didn't know why, it seemed like an unlikely conclusion to reach, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that he was staring at a man who had once lost everything.

 

"You'll do fine." James forced himself to finish, "I was thinking something muggle, like my name, and yours. You know muggle names, let's list through a few of them, starting with the A's."

 

"I really…"

 

James forced them to keep walking, to move forward towards the children's store, "Come on, Harry, don't be a drag. A's."

 

"Um, well… English muggle names… Abigail, Amanda, Amelia, Andrea..."

 

"Forget it, I don't like A's. What about our friends the B's."

 

Harry cracked that crooked amused smile, "Bailey, Beatrice, Buttercup…"

 

"Oh Merlin, that's even worse, and I thought we agreed no flowers. What about E's, E seems like a good solid vowel to start on."

 

"Emily, Eleanor, Elaine…"

 

"Wait, stop there, that's it." James said, a grin growing on his face.

 

"Elaine?" Harry asked with those raised eyebrows again, as if tasting the name and seeing how it sounded.

 

"No, not Elaine, Eleanor, little Ellie! It's perfect!" James hugged Harry to him in the spur of the moment, feeling the taller man twitch at the touch, "Thank you, Harry, you're going to be the best mysterious not-blood related uncle that little Ellie is ever going to have!"

 

"Uncle?" Harry asked, softly, his breath on James ear.

 

"Of course, you, Remus, Peter, and Sirius are all going to be her uncles. Do you not…" James pulled back when he felt Harry twitch and found that there were tears gathering in the corner of his eyes.

 

"Are you alright?" James asked and Harry just nodded silently, desperately, but didn't speak.

 

"I'm fine, I'm… fine." Harry said and then with that uncertain so fragile smile he said, "I will do my best, James, I'll try."

 

And all James could say was what he had said earlier, "You'll do fine."

 

(And he did, when Ellie was born, after Lily, James, Sirius, and others had held her, when Harry held her in his arms it looked like he had been waiting to do it all his life.

 

In some ways, James couldn't help but think in that hospital, Harry looked more like her father than James ever could.

 

They had the same eyes after all.)

 

* * *

 

1981

 

* * *

 

The Potter manor felt much too large in the dark, like everything and anything could lurk in the shadows, even when he knew it was just him and Peter.

 

A prophecy, one that wasn't about his daughter, about a boy, but one that fit close enough that Dumbledore was concerned. A prophecy that marked his newly born daughter for death.

 

He'd only recently gotten used to the idea of being a father, he spent most of the time having no idea what he was doing and Lily having even less of an idea, if it wasn't for Harry little Ellie would probably be dead.

 

(It was that, the ease at which Harry knew how to care for her, which all but confirmed James unspoken suspicions that Harry had done this before. And that it hadn't ended well.)

 

She was an unusually alert baby, very bright, more like her mother than like James in that respect. She was already crawling this way and that and helping herself roam around with little spurts of accidental magic.

 

But then Dumbledore had heard a prophecy and it had seemed as if his little world was unravelling. Within the week he and Lily would be going into hiding, James would be resigning from the auror corps, and they would wait behind the strongest wards imaginable for the storm to hit.

 

Because Voldemort would come, Dumbledore had assured them of that, and he would have no mercy for either his daughter or his wife.

 

(In a way, he thought, he was glad Ellie was so young. She wouldn't remember this, she wouldn't remember the nights of terror and the silent panic, by the time she was grown she might not even remember the war. If she had been older, if he had had to explain, it just might break him.)

 

"James, you have to change secret keepers." And here was Peter now, the shadows dark on his face, and his eyes so very afraid.

 

They were all afraid these days.

 

"I've talked with Sirius, James, and Remus can't be trusted." Peter took a breath, as if fearing James' outburst, before continuing, "I like Remus as much as anyone else but… He has no reason to side with us anymore. With the ministry hunting werewolves and Voldemort siding with them eventually he'll have no choice but to go to them. And when he does, the first thing he's going to do is give them Sirius."

 

"He has friendship." James said, staring into the fire, wondering if he could read the future in the flames.

 

"Friendship doesn't mean much in a war, James."

 

They were all changing, all so changed from their Hogwarts days. Sirius had become wild on the battlefield, dangerous and unhinged almost, Peter had become even more nervous and jittery and always on the verge of some breakdown, Remus had become melancholic, and James had become old.

 

He didn't know who they were anymore.

 

"If I'm wrong then it won't make any difference anyway, Remus doesn't need to know, you'll still have a secret keeper and you'll still be safe. You'll just be… more insured." Peter said before adding again, "Moony doesn't need to know, can't know."

 

"And who do you think should replace Sirius?" Because they had picked Sirius for a reason, loyal but more than loyal he could fight off most Death Eaters and the least likely of them to be captured.

 

"Well, I… I suppose… me." Peter said, uncertainly, a flash of emotion flickering in his eyes before it disappeared, "Well, think about it. If it can't be Padfoot and it can't be Moony then… Then I'm the only one left."

 

James pulled back to look at him, small, twitching, nervous little Peter Pettigrew who had never once managed to win a duel on his own. This little man who had never wanted to enter this war but had done so anyway, to stand by his friends and housemates, and who was perhaps the bravest of them all, "Peter, you can't win against the Death Eaters if they come for you."

 

"No, I… I know, but that's why it has to be me. Think about it, they would never suspect me, out of all of your friends. They'd just… kill me before they even thought about it. Because why would someone like James Potter ever rely on Wormtail?”

 

"Merlin, Peter, don't say that!"

 

"This isn't about me or Sirius or even Remus, James, it's about Lily and Ellie. You can't let your feelings get in the way of this. You know, that if they get Sirius, they're going to make him talk first. They won't do that with me."

 

Tears of exhaustion, of grief before having anything worth grieving, began to gather in the corner of his eyes, he rubbed a hand over his face and hunched over. "Oh, Merlin, Peter what have we come to?"

 

"…I'm sorry, Prongs. Maybe after the war is over… Things will go back to the way they used to be."

 

James lifted his head to stare at Peter in disbelief, "Peter, things will never go back to the way they used to be."

 

James couldn't go back to being that naïve boy again, the one who didn't have a wife, didn't have a daughter, and didn't have a prophecy hanging over them all like the silver blade of a guillotine. Who didn't have to pick and choose between his best friends and decide which one was the most trustworthy, which one he was willing to sacrifice for his family, which one was least likely to stab a knife in his back.

 

That boy would not have understood, would have been insulted that Peter ever suggest that Sirius could be tortured to the point of insanity and death, could never picture Peter being slaughtered like a pig, and would beat into a pulp anyone who would dare suggest that Remus would ever betray him.

 

And perhaps it was thinking about that boy, and how he could never go back to him, that he remembered the one man who existed outside of his circle of Marauders.

 

"If you do need my help…" James said, dully, letting the memories wash over him and he straightened, staring ahead into the fireplace.

 

"James?" Peter asked, sounding a little strained, but James was barely listening, was instead reaching a conclusion that he should have reached in the beginning.

 

"Harry."

 

"What?"

 

"The secret keeper has to be Harry Evans."

 

"Harry… You mean that weird auror, the one you brought to that meeting. But James, you barely know him, for all we know he could be a spy or a…"

 

James interrupted him, feeling for once perfectly calm, as if everything had just snapped into place, "He's not a spy."

 

"How do you know that? You've only known him three years, and you said that you don't know very much about him. If he wasn't a spy why didn't he join the Order? Why didn't he want to fight You Know Who?" Peter asked, a look of panic crossing his face, but again James didn't pay any attention to it.

 

"He would have been a much better spy if he had joined the Order." James said, and for a moment he could swear Peter paled, probably thinking of the implications of a spy inside the Order of the Phoenix.

 

"That doesn't mean he won't give away your secret if they come for him either!" Peter said, "This isn't a decision you can just make, James, you have to be absolutely sure this person will never betray you. Absolutely certain, and you can't with him. You didn't go to school with him, you didn't grow up with him, you don't even really work with him. You know nothing about him, nothing, James!"

 

"I know that he wouldn't betray me, that he can defeat any Death Eater that comes for him, maybe even You Know Who himself."

 

"But how do you know that, James?! How can you possibly know that?" Peter asked, shouting now, loud enough that his words echoed throughout the living room.

 

"His eyes."

 

"What?"

 

"When he looks at Ellie, at Lily, at me… It's his eyes, Wormtail, that's how I know."

 

And Peter just stared, wide eyed, disbelieving shock written on his features, the look of a man who had just been stabbed in the back and was feeling the life drain from him.

 

"You're a fool, Prongs."

 

(All great Gryffindors were also great fools.)

 

* * *

 

"You know, James, I always thought the manor was a bit too big anyway." Lily said as they inspected Godric's Hollow, unpacking this and that, and leaving Ellie to play with a sparkling and dancing magical toy in the corner.

 

"Right, well, I'm sure we'll get used to it in no time." James said, causing Lily to smile at him in her knowing way, and to smile at the four grown men behind him.

 

James, for his own part, was doing his best to ignore his best friends and unpack. It wasn't going very well.

 

First, there was Remus, who was in some ways the easiest. He, after all, didn't know anything. He still thought Sirius was the secret keeper and that all was right with the world. The only hard part with Remus was James having to look at him and think that he had betrayed Remus' trust and that this dark secret would hang unspoken over their friendship forever. Even now, only a few days after it had happened, James could barely look at Moony without feeling the stabs of guilt in his stomach.

 

Then there was Sirius, who kept glaring at James every second Moony looked away, and then who would turn to glare at Harry whenever Moony looked back. He'd hoped Sirius would understand but he never did, he'd never trusted Harry, and it seemed like he never would. So while he understood why they had to switch secret keepers he hadn't understood why it had to be Harry, why it couldn't be Peter.

 

Which brought James to Peter. He had thought Peter might be relieved, because he wouldn't have the burden of this secret anymore, but no Peter wasn't relieved… He wasn't relieved at all. James didn't know what he was, angry, betrayed, afraid, some mix of all of them and something else. Whatever it was Peter hung about like a wraith, his eyes darting this way and that, always looking at little Ellie and then at Harry and something about the way he looked at James' daughter made James shiver.

 

It was the look of a predator weighing the odds.

 

But it was Peter, Peter who had stood by him through everything, who had stayed in a war when he had every reason to run away.

 

(How many friends could he suspect of betrayal before he had none left at all?)

 

And then there was the last man in the room, the one who was now walking towards little Ellie, picking her up when she reached for him and smiling down at her like the beloved uncle that he'd come to be and cooing at her in some mysterious unknown language. The one who could ignore the tension as if it wasn't there at all, as if it was just him, Ellie, James, and Lily alone in this house.

 

Harry.

 

James didn't regret it, even now with everyone silently staring at each other, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was the right decision, the only decision, and he hoped they would come to see it in time. Remus who couldn't know anything, Sirius, and even Peter.

 

But he did wish they could all just get along.

 

"So, Prongs, where do you want all this stuff?" Sirius asked, looking through a box, "Doesn't look like there's much in it."

 

No, there wasn't because they needed to leave fast and Godric's Hollow was a small place, with room really for only the sentimental and essential.

 

"Leave the Potter heirlooms where they are, as for the rest, um… Ellie's stuff goes upstairs in the nursery, Lily's stuff she can deal with, and my stuff… The quidditch things down here and everything else in the master bedroom."

 

"Hey, Doppelprongs, think you want to put down Prongslet and help us out here?" Sirius called over to Harry. Harry's eyebrows raised in response and Ellie turned to look at them, still gripping one of Harry's fingers, blinking over with large green eyes like a little owl.

 

"Prongs?" She asked, her baby's lisp turning the r into an adorable w.

 

"I'm afraid we're all Prongs here." Harry said in response before looking again at Sirius and flatly responding, "Sirius, I realize you're young, but your lack of child rearing abilities astounds me."

 

With that Harry took Ellie into the kitchen where Lily probably was, unpacking all the cooking utensils and silverware.

 

"I'll show you who lacks child rearing abilities, asshole!" Sirius yelled at his back.

 

"Merlin, Sirius, don't swear in front of my little girl!"

 

"Oh, it's not like she'll remember it anyway. She's not even two yet." Sirius said with a sniff, which showed he really didn't understand Ellie at all, because if James had learned anything it was that little Ellie was monstrously clever and picked up exactly what you didn't want her to pick up.

 

James just knew asshole would be her new favorite word, courtesy of Uncle Padfoot.

 

"You really want that guy around your kid, Prongs?" Sirius asked, and just like that all that tense atmosphere was back.

 

"Yes, Sirius, I really want that guy around my kid."

 

Behind him, he heard Peter drop something, a dull thud, and looked up to see Peter clutching at his left arm.

 

"You alright there, Wormtail?"

 

Dazed, panicked, Peter looked up, "Yes, what? Fine, I'm fine. I just… I'm fine."

 

He didn't look fine, he was pale again, sweating, twitching, clutching at his arm and clawing at the skin.

 

"Is your arm…" James asked, turning fully away from the boxes to face Peter.

 

"My arm is fine!" Peter said, taking a step back from each of them, his eyes darting in between all of them. Peter picked up the dropped object, a charmed vase that Lily had made for a NEWT project, one that made the flowers brighter and smell sweeter when inside.<\p><p>"Are you…"

 

"Do you really think you can trust Evans in your house?" Peter asked, abruptly, picking up Sirius' favorite topic of conversation, "He knows where you live now, he can get in and out any time he wants, don't you think that's dangerous?"

 

"Listen, I understand you all are concerned, but can we lay off Harry for two bloody minutes and just unpack?" James asked motioning to the boxes around them, "After that then you can tell me what a bloody idiot I am."

 

"Dammit, James, you're not taking this seriously!" Peter said and this time James cut him off.

 

"Oh, believe me, Peter, I am taking this very seriously." It was probably the most serious James had ever been in his life.

 

"I can't talk to you." Peter finally said, in the voice that said he was done with James and his shenanigans and would not participate in them anymore, "You're completely unreasonable. A pigheaded idiot. And it's going to get you, Lily, and Ellie killed in your sleep."

 

"Well, I'll be looking forward to it, Wormtail. In the meantime, please, for Merlin's sake, just help me unpack."

 

But Peter was evidently more done than that, because he too, disappeared into the kitchen leaving Sirius, Remus, and James behind.

 

And then there were three.

 

"Well, Moony, is there something on your mind?" James asked, as the silence became too heavy.

 

"Ah, no, not really… You all sort of said it for me."

 

"Good, great, I'm glad we cleared all that up."

 

They spent the rest of the hour unpacking in more or less uneasy silence, interrupted only by Moony's desperate attempts at small talk and James' and Sirius' terse and forced responses. James imagined muggle hell would probably feel similar to what he felt in that moment.

 

Finally they were done, Sirius was out the door before James could even say goodbye, and Remus was loitering awkwardly on the doorstep.

 

"Just go, Moony, we can talk about it later. I'm too tired right now."

 

And then there was James, standing on his new doorstep staring out at his new neighborhood, wondering how long this temporary housing was supposed to last. How long were they going to have to hide like hermits?

 

With a sigh he closed the door and walked into the kitchen, or was about to, when he saw that it was just Harry and Peter. Lily and Ellie were gone, probably upstairs, putting Ellie to bed for her daily nap.

 

Harry was talking, quietly, to Peter and from the look on his face what he was saying was terrifying. Because that was the look he'd had when he'd killed Bellatrix, and Peter, well, Peter looked as if he was on the verge of being terrified to death.

 

Quietly James tried to disarm the silencing spell, and as he did so only caught stray words coming in and out as if he was dialing into a muggle radio, "Last chance… India… you… no idea… particular skills… I will find you."

 

And then the spell broke and Harry and Peter both looked up to see James walking in.

 

"So, chatting away?" James asked, taking in Peter's panicked look, the way he still clutched at his arm, and Harry's eyes like flint staring back.

 

"What were you talking about?" James asked.

 

Peter's eyes darted to Harry's but Harry only smiled, that slow crawling smile that had nothing happy in it, and said, "The wonders of friendship."

 

"Really, I thought I heard something about India?" And last chances, there had been nothing in there about friendship at all.

 

"I suggested Peter visit, as he's never been before." Harry said, the smile not leaving, his eyes boring into Peter's with enough intensity that James wouldn't be surprised if Peter caught fire beneath them.

 

"Now's not really the time though, with the war going on. I'm needed here." Peter responded stiffly, before standing, and nodding at James, "I think I'm going to head off home now, Prongs. I'll stop by sometime later."

 

"…Bye, Wormtail." James said, offering Peter a slight wave, before glaring down at Harry.

 

"You know, they already don't like you, threatening them will only make it worse."

 

Harry didn't respond, just kept staring after Peter, and then asked, "If I told you not to trust that man would you believe me?"

 

"Who? Peter, you're joking right? We've been friends forever, since Hogwarts."

 

"I thought so." Harry said, distantly, and almost sadly, as if he had known the answer before he even asked.

 

James didn't say, that when they asked him not to trust Harry, that he hadn't listened to them then either. He just stood there and watched as Harry stood, smiled at him politely, and said, "I think it's time I headed home too, James. Best of luck."

 

"Luck, it'd be nice to have some, wouldn't it?"

 

"Yes, it would."

 

* * *

 

In Anna Karenina fate is the train on the tracks, barreling forward towards the station, the sound of its engine audible long before it makes an appearance.

 

James Potter had never read and would never read Anna Karenina but he heard the distant sound of the engine.

 

He still failed to recognize it.

 

October 31, 1981.

 

A timeline and a few key facts that necessitate the dramatic and inevitable betrayal.

 

Peter Pettigrew, earlier that morning, first met with Sirius Black and presented condemning evidence against Harry Evans. Evidence that was not true but that Sirius Black was more than willing to believe in given his own frustrations and suspicions.

 

Harry Evans was foreign, Harry Evans was not a light wizard, Harry Evans did not trust or like Albus Dumbledore, Harry Evans had appeared out of nowhere, Harry Evans was an unbelievably powerful wizard, Harry Evans had been chosen as the secret keeper when he had only been friends with James for a few short war filled years.

 

Sirius Black barely needed evidence.

 

Peter then prompted Sirius to confront Evans that night, while Evans was unaware and James in hiding, and kill him before he had the chance to betray James and Lily. The only true secret keeper was a dead one, after all.

 

Sirius followed this advice and presented enough of a force, and was personal enough, that Harry Evans could not quite bring himself to fight him seriously. He had already been responsible for this man's death in another lifetime, after all.

 

(This was a sin he would have to spend the next eternity repenting.)

 

That night Peter Pettigrew paid a visit to his old friend James Potter.

 

* * *

 

"Peter?"

 

Peter stood silently on his doorstep, his eyes empty, his wand shaking in his right hand. James ushered him in, Peter said nothing, just kept clutching his wand and staring ahead into the house. He shuffled like a ghost over into the living room, sitting down mechanically when James pushed him onto the sofa.

 

"Peter, what's happened?" Which of them was dead, was it Sirius, was it Moony, was it Harry for that matter?

 

"James…" Peter started, quietly and without any emotion in it, "I'm sorry, James."

 

"Peter, something's happened, what's happened?!" James gripped Peter's shoulders, desperately, his own mind spinning as he tried to push down the horrible images flashing through his head.

 

"You always were my best friend, James. You, not Padfoot or Moony, but you James." Peter just said, shaking his head back and forth, his knuckles white against the dark wood of his wand.

 

"Calming, calming draught." James said, Peter didn't look like he was in any condition to talk, "It's okay, Wormtail, whatever's happened… You're here, at least. I'll get you a calming draught and then you can tell me…"

 

"No, James, you have to believe me! Please!" A sob choked his last word and with his wandless hand he pulled James forward, "Please, James, tell me that you know I was your friend."

 

"Peter, of course I know you're my friend. Of course, Peter, you know that. Nothing will ever change that." James squeezed Peter's shoulders, as if to keep him from slipping, to keep him as grounded as James needed to be, "Nothing."

 

Peter's face crumpled and through sobs his next words were almost unintelligible, "I'm so sorry."

 

James forced a smile onto his face, one that twitched and jerked, desperate to turn into a howl of despair because someone must have died, someone must be gone for Peter to look like that.

 

"It's okay, Peter, it's okay."

 

He stood and for a moment Peter's hand still gripped him but then Peter forced himself to release James' robes. Peter watched with those watery agonized eyes as James turned towards Lily's makeshift potions' workshop, where they could safely keep potions away from little Ellie's curious fingers.

 

He didn't see Peter raise his wand to his back, didn't even hesitate, and only stopped still when he heard the beginning of those words he'd heard too often before.<\p><p>His heart stopping even before the spell reached its end.

 

" _Avada Kedavra_ "

 

The light, death, it was like Harry's eyes, not Lily's.

 

( _Et tu, Peter?_ )

 

* * *

 

Lily Potter née Evans would join her husband within half an hour of his death. Like James, she was caught by surprise, and hadn't even realized her husband was dead before she too saw the green light at the end of the tunnel.

 

There was no tearful plea at Ellie Potter's crib, no "Please, not my daughter, anything but my daughter, please!"

 

Only two dead, dreadfully young, corpses staring into the great abyss, oblivious to their daughter's wailing from her room and Peter Pettigrew standing over her with a wand pointed at her forehead.

 

("It's… It's okay, Ellie… You'll see them again soon. I promise… I promise.")

 

They would find the burned unrecognizable corpse of what they would assume was a Death Eater and Eleanor Lily Potter, screaming. They would come to the incorrect conclusion that Sirius, the presumed secret keeper, had betrayed James and Lily. Sirius would come to the incorrect conclusion that Harry Evans had betrayed James and Lily and promptly disappear into the gutter vowing revenge. Eleanor Lily Potter would be placed on the doorstep of her muggle relatives where the grief stricken Harry Evans, Death the Destroyer of Worlds, would find her.

 

This is the sound that fate makes.

 

* * *

 

The early November wind rattled the barren trees, the streetlights gave off a distinct audible hum, and outside Number 4 Privet Drive the infant girl swaddled in blue blankets squirmed and mewled.

 

Until the man in black picked her up, "Oh, Ellie.”

 

On the doorstep of this white suburban home, dressed in black robes from tens of thousands of years in the future, holding a colorful bundle to his chest he looked more alien and terrible than perhaps he ever had before.

 

"Did you know, Ellie, that I have seen life end? I've seen mankind flicker and then fade into darkness. And the universe felt so cold and empty then that I couldn't stand it. I feel…"

 

He didn't finish, simply gripped her tighter, closer to him.

 

He looked at the door with narrowed eyes and then without any hesitation he apparated away with Ellie Potter in his arms; flickering out of Little Whinging as if he had never been there in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

Bright yellow sunlight fell between clouds on the quaint small magical village on the edge of the French Alps. The kind that, centuries ago, had probably been a muggle village but had slowly but surely transformed and eventually secluded itself from the muggles as all villages with enough pureblood families did.

 

Somewhere unseen children were laughing and scrambling after one another, a few appearing above the buildings on handed down broomsticks playing a makeshift game of quidditch. In the streets a few wizards and witches strolled here and there, in no true rush, but instead making an excuse to be out in the summer weather and see what the flowers looked like.

 

And in the middle of the road, somehow unnoticed by all that passed by her, was a red headed little girl skipping stones on the old cobblestone streets. Each time they hit the earth it would ripple slightly, as if the ground was the surface of a lake instead of a street, and eventually would sink into the stones and disappear.

 

And somehow her hand was never empty and whenever she reached back another perfectly shaped river stone would appear to skip.

 

"Eleanor Potter,"

 

The girl looked up, her eyes moving from the cobblestones to his face, her rock skipping seemingly forgotten.

 

He did not think to wonder how he looked in the middle of this sun filled street, a too thin ghost of the man he could have been but never managed to become, but instead found himself only focused on her.

 

She looked like her mother, but only in the most basic sense that her hair was red and her eyes were green. In truth there was little similarity between her and her parents, and only knowing who she was allowed him to connect her to them.

 

"It is Eleanor Potter, correct?" He continued, when she didn't say anything, and she didn't say anything to this either but instead straightened and considered him sticking her hands casually in her pockets and leaning back on her heels.

 

She was looking at him the way he himself might look at an interesting pattern of runes, ones he found interesting but wasn't necessarily invested in figuring out, dissecting instead familiar symbols and piecing it back together.

 

"If you want me to be." She said, finally, with a small smile as if this was quite the pun she'd managed to make. Looking, with her casual grace and foreign clothing, nothing like a girl her age should.

 

"Is your guardian with you?" He paused over that word, guardian, not quite certain it was the one he wanted to choose but failing to find another to replace it.

 

"No, dad's talking to Flamel." She said with a nod up towards the mountains, "He said it might take a while and to keep myself entertained without lighting anything on fire."

 

She continued to survey him, taking in his torn clothing and haggard appearance, and remarked, "You look a bit like Uncle Sirius, I thought you might have been him at first actually, but you just look like him and don't walk like him at all."

 

He paused, something in him freezing at the mention of that name, "You've met Sirius?"

 

"Only once or twice, when dad's distracted or nostalgic, of course with dad they sort of go hand in hand. He drifts, you know, I guess it just sort of happens when you're as ridiculously old as he is." She seemed to consider this for a moment before adding with a shrug, "But I don't think Sirius is anywhere close to here right now, since dad went off to meet with Flamel and didn't take me with him. Dad only lets Uncle Sirius catch up when we're together."

 

He had almost forgotten that just as he had left the Death Eaters and now spent half of his energies moving forward and the other half looking over his shoulder and waiting for green light at his back Sirius too was on the run from what remained of his former comrades as well as the government itself.

 

And that they were both ultimately searching for the same man, if for very different reasons.

 

"Who are you, anyway, since you seem to be looking for me?" The little girl asked, as if he could be anyone at all and it would make no difference to her.

 

"Regulus Black," He said before adding, "Your Uncle Sirius' brother."

 

* * *

 

 

Whenever he closed his eyes he saw the cave.

 

It haunted him, more than the corpses that had been beneath the water, more than the glowing green potion in the center, more than the creaking of the boat and his own misting breath in the darkness.

 

It was the cave itself (on the edge of the sea, waves beating against it and its opening like the mouth of some dead great beast swallowing light itself) that he remembered most clearly from his sweating nightmares.

 

That was the moment, more than any other, that he realized that he had crossed over from everything he had ever known into a surreal nightmare. Or, perhaps it wasn't that, perhaps it was that the world he had been familiar with had always simply been a façade for this ancient alien world.

 

Regulus Black had once been a Death Eater but he had been too smart or rather too introspective. The dark lord had use for people who were intelligent; you could only have so many Crabbes and Goyles before you needed to turn to someone competent. And there were many who were quite brilliant in his ranks.

 

Severus, Regulus, Lucius to some extent, and even Bellatrix had once been called the brightest witch of her generation. But they had all thought differently from one another, Severus had been so desperate and angry that he had been willing to look past anything, Lucius had been so consumed by his own ambition and so assured of his own birthright that he hadn't stopped to think, and Bellatrix…

 

Regulus had been born the second son, the spare, and had only become the heir to the house of Black when Sirius was disowned. He had nothing to prove, as Severus did, but he also had spent much of his time thinking about what it meant to be a lord and the duties of a lord.

 

Regulus had joined as many of peers and friends had, had his own opinions about blood, but he'd also watched this man they called Voldemort and even in those early years he'd had those niggling feelings of doubt. At the time it'd been hard to pin down, he'd felt it, but he couldn't say exactly why.

 

Now it was fairly easy to think why.

 

It'd been a show.

 

A good one, the best kind, giving the audience exactly what they wanted to see. The dark lord Voldemort, descended from Salazar Slytherin himself, savior of the British Isles, come to purge the mudblood stain from the country and return Britain to its former glory. A man who was cunning, ambitious, passionate, clever, powerful, everything they'd always dreamed of.

 

But there was a hollowness behind his rhetoric. The kind of an actor playing the role of a great man, reading his speeches and words, but only saying them and not believing them.

 

Lord Voldemort, Regulus had realized one day, didn't exist. It was something that they had made up and he had taken advantage of. For what purpose Regulus still didn't know, the man had conquered Britain and Regulus still had no idea why, only that it wasn't to purge the mudbloods but it wasn't to help them either.

 

An immortal dark emperor, perhaps that was all the reason there needed to be, but even that sometimes terrified Regulus. Because what if that itself was another show, simply a more convincing one, one that was meant to draw in those like Regulus. Those that looked at this beautiful charismatic man and wondered where he came from and why he was so eager to help them at the cost of a civil war?

 

Because while it'd been carefully guarded, trapped in the man's halfblood past, it had been easy enough to put two and two together once he'd heard the word. Horcruxes. Seven horcruxes. Only it couldn't possibly be seven because the side effects from one alone were supposedly noticeable, you were never quite the same after you split your soul in half, and Voldemort had displayed none of those tendencies.

 

When he looked at you it was as if he was dissecting you, as if only by staring at you he had used legillimancy to pour open your every thought and read it like a vaguely interesting novel, as if everything you ever were or ever could be was laid bare before him and he found it lacking.

 

Some part of Regulus wouldn't have been surprised if the man had known from the beginning, from the time his eyes first met Regulus', that Regulus would leave one day and that he was letting it happen if only because he found it funny.

 

He'd said things, over the years, unnerving things that resonated with Regulus in nightmares. They'd come back, these fractured memories, and he'd hear those words over and over again.

 

"Do you realize that we have won this little war of ours, Regulus?"

 

November 1, 1981.

 

He'd been summoned to his lord's side, still his lord then, and had been standing in front of him with his head bowed in submission as the man had stared forward into nothingness. The dark lord never did look dazed or distracted but in that moment he'd seemed out of focus, his attention clearly elsewhere, and he just stared through Regulus.

 

"My lord?"

 

"In one night I have decimated the Order of the Phoenix without even having to lift a finger. I have removed the Potters, the Longbottoms, the Blacks, Pettigrew, the werewolf… I have removed almost all of Dumbledore's pawns and I didn't even have to do anything. I have subverted a prophecy…" The man trailed off and his focus returned, directly to Regulus, in a way that Regulus felt the man had never looked at him before.

 

As if he was truly seeing Regulus for the first time.

 

"Of course, there is always Oedipus to think of, who never had any intention of marrying his mother or killing his father and yet somehow found himself doing both. But I didn't call you here to talk about prophecies."

 

For a terrified instant Regulus couldn't say anything, and then, haltingly, "My lord, if I may be so bold, why did you call me here?"

 

The dark lord smiled, a slow creeping thing, nothing genuine inside of it, "Things are changing, Regulus. The world is about to shift on its axis and nothing you knew will ever be the same. But I have a little job for you to do…"

 

Suddenly he was jerked back into the present by the sound of a little girl's voice, "So what's a homeless looking guy like you doing in a French country village like this?"

 

They were in an inn, one the girl claimed to be the rendezvous point with the man in black, Harry Evans. It was strangely normal, as if England wasn't ruled by a warmonger emperor with his eyes set on the continent, as if Regulus himself didn't have a bounty on his head, as if the war had never happened and had never been won in the first place.

 

"That is a very long story but I need to speak with the man in black."

 

The girl scoffed at this, waving a hand to brush the words casually aside, "Everybody needs to speak to the man in black. Which is kind of funny, because I think dad hates his reputation, and is always trying to say he's on vacation or else retired but nobody ever believes him. Personally, I don't know how you can retire from being a god emperor but he tries really hard."

 

Rumors of the man in black had only started cropping up after 1981, rarely in England, mostly abroad. About an absurdly powerful wizard dressed in black, with a young red headed daughter, who seemed an expert in every field.

 

They said that sometimes he was inclined to perform favors for those who met him on the road and that he could perform magic that no one else could.

 

But Regulus was one of the few left who knew that the man had once gone by the name of Harry Evans and had been close friends with James Potter. That was the man that Regulus had been looking for.

 

"But that's all irrelevant, what do you want with him?"

 

"I need his help." And that was all he wanted to say inside of an inn, to an eleven-year-old girl who by all rights should have been in Hogwarts.

 

Her grin turned from one that was cheerful to one that was jagged, wider and with more teeth than the dark lord's smiles, but one in a similar vein of thought. Something inhuman and jagged, "Oh, well that's not very specific, is it Mr. Black?"

 

"It's none of your business."

 

"Unfortunately for you, it is my business." The girl said before leaning back in her seat and peering at him with an assessing gaze, "I might just be able to save you a lot of time and grief. You're from England, right?"

 

"You're also from England." He said but she waved this off as she had his earlier statement.

 

"Please, I'm barely from England. I haven't even ever been to England, you know, just because I was born there doesn't make me English." She had such a casual almost mudblood way of talking. The kind of diction that would have gotten a hex pointed at her head if she had grown up in the Black household, "But that's not what I'm getting at. You see, I've heard a lot about England, not just from dad either. A few years ago we ran across all sorts of people getting the hell out of England, not as much anymore, things are a bit more settled. Rumor has it though that he has his eye on the channel."

 

She leaned forward once again, placing her chin into her hands and cocking her head to the side, her smile still with that feral edge, "It's why dad's gone up to see Flamel, you know, because there are some things that mortal hands just shouldn't touch. Dad's very touchy about that sort of thing."

 

Suddenly it clicked together, in a way that it hadn't clicked before, "He's destroying the philosopher's stone."

 

"Bingo." The girl said, her grin suddenly overwhelmingly cheerful, "You're rather clever, aren't you, Mr. Black?"

 

"But why would he…"

 

"And that's where we come to why this is all so unfortunate. I'm going to go out here on a limb and guess that you want dad to kill off your dark emperor." She waited for his response, one he didn't give, her green eyes seeming to pin him in place just as easily as a spell might.

 

"He's going to say no."

 

"Why do you think that?"

 

"You really don't know anything about him, do you?" She asked, and this seemed to be a rhetorical question because she continued, "Of course, no one really does, mysteriousness is part of his charm. He's like the ronin hero in every badly dubbed samurai movie you've ever seen. He comes in one morning and not a single person in the town knows his name, he has a mysterious past involving lots of murder and love affairs which is all very tragic, he then kicks ass of all the evil samurai in town with this mysterious tragic charm intact, and then at the end of it walks back out into the sunset never to be seen in that village again."

 

She then seemed to remember that she was supposed to be explaining to him why her guardian, why Harry Evans who had taken in James Potter's daughter, would turn his back so easily on England, "Right, back on track. To keep it simple, it's not dad's problem."

 

"Not his problem." Regulus said blankly, dully, without any emotion in it.

 

"Nope, not really." She agreed, as if they were discussing the weather.

 

"Because he's not English?"

 

She considered this for a moment, her eyes narrowing, before saying, "I guess you could say that."

 

And wasn't it strange that this girl, this girl who perhaps was more of a victim of the dark lord's wars and reign of terror than any other, could so casually say this? Like she herself really had no stake in this at all, and that the world of what could have been, where she was in Hogwarts and had a mother and a father was meaningless.

 

But looking at her he felt his rage evaporate and something close to pity taking its place.

 

Because she'd never known anything else, eleven years old and all of those years filled with mindless wandering, how could she envy something she'd never seen?

 

"Regardless, I'd like to hear it from him, rather than from you." He simply said and just like that he returned to what he'd been when he'd walked into this rural town, a man fueled only by his own exhausted desperation.

 

"If you say so." She said, blinking at him, and adding, "But don't act all surprised when he does say no, because I did warn you."

 

Ten minutes or so of waiting in awkward silence later, the girl just looking at him, and him trying not to stare too blatantly back, a shadow fell over them and Regulus looked up into the pale face and terrible green eyes of Harry Evans.

 

"Regulus Black," The man said before extending a hand, "You might find it strange, but I've always wanted to meet you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bellatrix had died a few years before the death of the Potters, summer of 1979, and no one had expected it.

 

Regulus had joined the Death Eaters only a few years prior, but Bellatrix had been in longer, having graduated Hogwarts a few years before Sirius. By the time he had joined she had already had a reputation and a strange relationship with the dark lord, one Regulus didn't know how to label.

 

He remembered how she would look at the dark lord, always up at him, something fanatical and worshipful in her expression. As if she was not merely gazing upon a king but on a god, one who was absolute and unquestionable, but who wore a mortal guise out of whimsy.

 

And he… He indulged her, humored her, as he humored all of them.

 

(Half overheard conversations, in the dead of night outside the dark lord's study, him walking past and his cousin inside.

 

"My lord, if there's anything you need… Anything from me, specifically, as a woman…"

 

And through the slit in the door his eye caught the dark lord's and the dark lord smiled over at him and didn't say a word.)

 

He had no doubt that they were lovers, no, that they'd had sexual intercourse, because the dark lord had no interest in giving away things like love to anyone who simply asked. He would indulge, give you what you thought you wanted from him, but nothing more than that.

 

She married LeStrange and then she started slipping, slipping further into madness, into fanaticism, becoming the dark lord's mad dog.

 

Later, it was never the dark lord who reprimanded those who questioned his authority, instead it was Bellatrix and a cruciatus and a fifty-fifty gamble that you'd come out the other side still being you.

 

And then one day she'd died.

 

"My lord," Crouch said, eagerly, always too eager but then in those days they were all far too eager, "I have news from the ministry."

 

It was the inner circle, comprised of the heirs to noble houses and those who believed they curried favor with the dark lord, and it was a few days after Bellatrix's death. They kneeled in a circle, their lord the only one unmasked, the room dark and filled with flickering shadows from the candlelight.

 

"Well?" The dark lord asked, when Crouch had stopped, and for a moment Barty had visibly flinched and it became clear that he had been seeking more audible praise. But no, he wouldn't get that until the end of the message, he should have known better.

 

"They say that it was a single auror who killed her. A recent recruit by the name of Harry Evans, an Irish mudblood."

 

"Yet one who was able to dispose of Bellatrix as if she was a pig in a muggle slaughterhouse." The dark lord said, his voice like the steel of a blade, "Anything else?"

 

"Yes, my lord," Barty was now visibly panicking, the mask hiding nothing, only making him appear almost comical as he tried not to fidget, "He's young, mid-twenties, only recently moved to England. Reports are that he's quite talented, that he doesn't use a wand."

 

That seemed to spark the dark lord's interest, "He doesn't use a wand?"

 

"No, according to his officers he doesn't even appear to own one."

 

For a moment their lord said nothing, but he leaned forward, his eyes sharper than they had ever seen them before, and he said, "Well then, I'd like to see these files on Harry Evans personally. After all, we can't afford to have the mudbloods pretending they can go wandless, can we?"

 

And now, so many years later, Regulus was shaking the very hand that was stained in Bellatrix's blood.

 

* * *

 

 

Before Regulus could blink they had apparated elsewhere, out of the inn's restaurant and into a small room overflowing with odds and ends. Stacks of books rose like half-finished columns from the floor, silver instruments whirred and sparked, overhead bright balls of light floated here and there illuminating the room, and everywhere was brightly colored fabric whose texture he couldn't recognize.

 

The man was sweeping the girl up into his arms, his smile that of a doting father which should have been juxtaposed by his appearance and demeanor yet seemed strangely natural, and as he whirled her about he asked, "And how was your day today, Prongslet? I see you've made a friend."

 

Eleanor spared Regulus a glance, raising her eyebrows at the sight of him, before saying, "Friend is a very strong word."

 

His smile became thin, pained looking, "Not too strong, I should hope, the world is a very large place to be friendless in."

 

The girl shrugged, floating down from the man's arms, and just said in a casual sort of manner, "He's come here on the day of your daughter's wedding to ask for a favor."

 

Which was a very strange thing to say, but the man seemed to understand, because his smile lost a little of its brittle edge and gained a spark of humor.

 

"Oh, is he going to make me an offer I can't refuse?"

 

The girl didn't say yes or no, just gave a sort of sideways nod to Regulus, as if he was the one who should now be talking.

 

It was hard to remember what exactly he was supposed to be saying.

 

The man looked younger than Regulus, just as he had in his photographs from 1980, but his photographs had never done him justice. If he didn't know any better he would have thought that he really was the girl's biological father, it was more than the eyes and the face, it was the way they held themselves and only made the barest pretense of appearing human.

 

"How can I help you, Regulus?" The man's attention was fully on Regulus now, but it was softer than the girl's regard, at once older and more tender.

 

He had been trained, since his brother's estrangement, on how to persuade other lords to his cause and turn the Wizengamot in his favor. As Lord of the house of Black he would be expected to make and hold alliances with the other ancient English lines.

 

Voldemort had also made use of this, when Regulus had been a Death Eater, often sending either Regulus or Lucius to negotiate with foreigners or neutral families who had yet to side with Dumbledore or the dark lord.

 

Yet what came out was blunt, unpersuasive, and hopelessly desperate, "I need your help in destroying the English dark lord."

 

For a moment the man simply stared at him, blankly, as if he had no idea at all what to say and then finally equally as blunt, "No."

 

"No, you must listen, I know who you were and I know that you are perhaps the only man alive who could possibly help me." And there were his words, the ones he had meant for earlier, but out of place they sounded weak and unconvincing.

 

"You knew who I was? What an interesting thing to say, because I always thought that I never was what I was." These words barely processed, they were an aside at any rate, and not something Regulus needed to hear.

 

"We are running out of time. The man is practically immortal and if I die, if the information I have dies with me, then he might as well be. And he won't stop at England, he won't stop at Europe, he'll take everything and he will burn every field and every village that he owns, he'll destroy them as he is destroying us. Letting us rot from the inside out!" Regulus stood there, breathing heavily, one hand over his heart and another reaching out towards the man in black.

 

The man stared back, still touching Eleanor Potter, but his eyes were empty in the way that a building is empty after all its occupants had died, barren, "You must understand, Regulus, that I do admire you greatly. You are a good man, a valiant one, and the truly valiant are few and far between. However, you must also understand that this is none of my business."

 

"None of your business?"

 

"That's right. You're an Englishman, he's an Englishman, it's not my place to interfere." The man offered him an almost apologetic smile.

 

"So you will do nothing? Even when he comes here?" To France, to Europe, even when there was nowhere left to run?

 

"Even when he comes here." The man agreed, and as if marking that the conversation was over he walked towards the window and peered out, looking at the orange glow of the sunset, letting it catch on the crystals suspended throughout the room.

 

He stared at the man's back, ignoring the shooing motions that the girl was making with her hands, and he found that even if he had wanted to he could not move from the spot he was in.

 

"There are a lot of things I know about the dark lord, things no one else has pieced together, but there is also quite a lot I know about you."

 

The man didn't turn from the window or the sunset but Regulus continued regardless, "You see, I know that Harry Evans was James Potter's only real friend, and I know that somewhere beneath his stubborn idiocy James Potter must have known that too."

 

The girl's eyes caught his, widened in surprise, and she let her hands fall to her sides as she realized that Regulus was not going to leave so easily as that. Not until he had said everything there was worth saying.

 

"He has seven horcruxes, I destroyed one and it nearly killed me, if I could do it by myself believe me I would. But as it stands I have nowhere left to turn, nowhere except here, to you. Don't do it for England, don't do it for me, do it for James, for his wife, and for their daughter."

 

The man let out a great, shuddering sigh, one that rattled the very frame of the room and in a defeated tone he asked, "Haven't you heard that I'm on vacation?"

 

"Please, Harry."

 

Harry Evans, dressed in black, staring out the window, did not turn to face Regulus. Regulus continued to reach out regardless, waiting, willing the man to turn towards him and shake his hand.

 

And then the girl's voice rang out, "So, it's like Lord of the Rings."

 

The man turned from the window towards his adopted daughter with raised eyebrows and she beamed right back up at him, "A quest to destroy the dread objects of an immortal dark lord, trudging through Mordor itself to reach them, facing an overwhelming army and insurmountable odds. It's exactly like Lord of the Rings."

 

"You know I hadn't ever realized that before." The man sounded almost stunned, like he couldn't quite believe what he was saying, but his words seemed to only spur the girl on further.

 

"I've always wanted to go on a quest to save Middle Earth." The girl said and then with a sudden intense look said, "After all, the ring must be destroyed.”

 

"This isn't a game, Ellie, I can't do everything for these…"

 

The girl cut off her father's argument before he could even begin to articulate it, "Please, in the books Gandalf's never the one who does all the work, that was all Frodo and Sam. It's Uncle Regulus' quest, we're just the fellowship."

 

For a moment the man gave the girl a sort of hapless look, one of resigned amusement, and then a pale hand was ruffling through her hair, "Only if I get to be Gandalf, I have the terrible suspicion that I might be cast in the role of Aragorn."

 

"Only if I get to be a more awesome version of Legolas."

 

"More awesome?" The man asked, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.

 

"I'm thinking a samurai elfin prince, one who has been training with bears in the mountains for years, perfecting his craft and fighting to reclaim his honor by joining the quest to defeat Sauron."

 

Then they both turned towards him, the girl conjuring a samurai's blade out of thin air, and transfiguring her clothes into some ridiculous mix between Japanese robes and European medieval garb, "Well then, Mr. Black, where would you like to cross over into Mordor?"

 

And just like that Regulus realized he had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on.

 

 

They started out for England the next morning.

 

That night Regulus conveyed everything he knew about the horcruxes to Harry Evans while the girl slept. Occasionally, as Regulus spoke, the man's eyes would drift to the girl and linger on her form something grief stricken resting inside of them.

 

"Of the seven he planned to make I believe I know the identity of three." Regulus began, "There is a notebook, Lucius currently has possession of it, a plain empty journal of Tom Marvolo Riddle, which is in fact the dark lord's true name. I'm sure Lucius still has it in his mansion, hidden beneath the floorboards with the Malfoy grimoires."

 

"And the others?" Evans prompted.

 

"The dark lord has an obsession with Hogwarts founders, being the heir of Slytherin I suppose it's somewhat reasonable. Until a few decades ago Hufflepuff's cup's location was known, I have no doubt that it is now a horcrux, although I have no idea where he stored it. I've already destroyed Slytherin's locket. These are all the ones I'm certain of."

 

"And the rest?"

 

"Ravenclaw's diadem and Gryffindor's sword have been lost over the centuries, but if Voldemort were to find them I have no doubt he'd add them to his collection. Otherwise, he might use some family heirloom of the Guant's, in a similar way that he made use of his own diary. Beyond that, it's best simply to look in places that hold secret meaning with him. His father's house, his grandfather's house, the orphanage, the cave…"

 

"Hogwarts." Harry Evans added to his list, and truth be told that Regulus hadn't considered Hogwarts, he sometimes forgot that the dark lord had ever attended Hogwarts.

 

"And Hogwarts, yes, he might put one or two inside the castle itself." Perhaps in the Chamber of Secrets, which only he himself would have access to.

 

It seemed meager, all his information brought out like that, despite the fact that it had been gathered over months of digging into old forgotten bloodlines, in desperate secret from his comrades and the lord himself.

 

"It's a good start." Evans finally concluded and with those words Regulus felt an absurd amount of relief as if that alone made this all manageable.

 

"Where do you plan to start first?" Evans prompted, and this was the tricky bit, because Regulus couldn't quite decide.

 

The cave had been horrific, the cave had almost killed him, and that had only been the first horcrux. That was before they had noticed Regulus' disappearance, before the dark lord had begun to send assassins and former comrades after him, and now it was three times as dangerous because the dark lord was watching for him.

 

"Places connected with his past, judging by the cave, where I found the locket in, he doesn't check the defenses regularly. If we visit his father's house, the Gaunt house, the orphanage, we are less likely to run up against active resistance."

 

As they undoubtedly would inside of Hogwarts and the Malfoy manor.

 

With that though his eyes slid towards the girl, only eleven years old, and strange as she was still untouched by death and war. Someone with no place on the battlefield they would be entering, "Where will you leave the girl?"

 

"Nowhere, Ellie will come with us."

 

And he could see her then, covered in blood, panicked and frenzied as everything fell apart around her and burned, "This is no place for a child!"

 

"No, it isn't, but it's time that Ellie stopped being a child." The man's eyes drifted towards the girl again, "She has a greater power than you or even she understands. She needs to learn what that means."

 

Regulus had thought his own parents had been too hard, too demanding, of Sirius but they had never sent him against a dark lord to die at the age when he should have been inside Hogwarts.

 

And the girl had shown no signs of resentment, she was so painfully innocent, and Regulus just knew that all of that would shatter like glass.

 

"I don't expect you to understand." The man said, almost resigned, "But do understand that it is one of my conditions."

 

"Even if it gets her killed?"

 

The man smiled, a fragile determined thing that wobbled and twitched with effort, and he said (as if he was telling a truly terrible pun), "It won't."

 

The next morning Regulus watched as the girl danced around, still dressed in the same bizarre clothes as the day before, overly eager and completely unaware of just where they were going and what they would be doing while next to her Harry Evans stood tall, proud, and terrible in that old custom auror's uniform he used to wear in the field.

 

Regulus, for his own part, stood to side and watched them feeling that he had done all that he was able and that there was nothing more to do or say. He had found the man in black and the man had agreed, it was as simple as that.

 

Regulus couldn't afford anything more complicated.

 

* * *

 

 

"Tell me a story, dad. About the time when you were a god emperor."

 

On the edge of the Riddle mansion, the dilapidated home of the dark lord's muggle father, neither the girl nor the man seemed particularly concerned with their surroundings. Evans worked quietly, but with an ease and confidence that was out of place given their task, setting his fingers on the ground and letting out a pulse of magic that caused the wards to flare and shudder.

 

The girl leaned over curiously bright green eyes watching the man's magic with unguarded fascination.

 

The mansion was a cursed and forgotten place. It was overrun with vines, the stone work decayed, and an aura of malevolence exuding through every shadow and every broken window. Looking at it Regulus could very easily remember that the young Tom Marvolo Riddle, before he had even taken the name Voldemort, had killed every single person he'd found inside.

 

If muggles could leave ghosts then the place would have been flooded with them.

 

"You've heard most of those stories already, Prongslet."

 

Suddenly the wards were dancing, untangling themselves rapidly, until the golden threads of magic lay limp and disintegrated back into the air, Evans watching them with rapt attention. With that, they stood, and made their way into the mansion.

 

"Tell me something new."

 

"Something new?" For a moment he says nothing, he takes a step into the house, peering inside those green eyes perhaps seeing everything that Regulus himself could not see. When it seemed as if there are no more traps in the front door they stepped in.

 

"Have I ever told you about the heretic prince who almost became a god himself?"

 

"No, that definitely sounds like something interesting that I would remember."

 

There was something unnerving in the girl's casualness and even in the man's, as if they were removed from the danger and that no trap the dark lord could possibly devise could harm them, as if they were on a separate plane entirely from Regulus.

 

The walls were rotted with mold, everything was dark, the only light from the lumos of Regulus' wand and a bright dancing light in Evans' hand. The place smells of things long since decayed and in fifty more years it might be completely overtaken by vegetation.

 

They walked as a group, through the dining room with places still set for dinner, through the kitchen, the living room, all aspects of the house which still had those small signs that someone had been in these rooms not expecting to die.

 

These muggles had lived the last day of their lives without any idea of what was to come.

 

"He was the eldest son, the prince, of thousand-year-old clan that lived in the deep near uninhabitable deserts on a planet called Persephone. For many years my people and his had little to do with each other, there was no glory in battle in the deep desert and they paid little attention to the name of the outsiders governing the more fertile land."

 

As they moved upstairs, past yellowed pictures in frames, and towards the bedrooms Regulus found himself listening to these words with half an ear and wondering what they mean. They sound more like a fable, than a life, but the way Evans was talking about it…

 

As if he truly wasn't human at all and that Harry Evans was only a cheap mask that he wore for a few years in England.

 

"But then they did." The girl said for him, walking up the wood of the railing, balancing on the balls of her feet as she did so with a grace no human could possess.

 

"Yes, then they did." The man paused for a moment letting those words hang in the air and then continued his story, "His name was Erised, a long since forgotten play on words in a long since forgotten language, one which meant the greatest desires that shatter us. He was born in an era when my people decided to educate the desert heathens and so he was among the first there to hear about the god emperor named Death. And he chose not to believe in him."

 

"Isn't that a little counterintuitive though? Something will exist or not exist whether or not you choose to believe in it; even gods." The girl paused at the top of the banister, perching like a bird, placing her head into her hands and grinning her fox grin, "I don't think I would mind, whether I was or wasn't believed in."

 

Evans stops them at the top of the stairs, holding out a hand, and for a moment his eyes close before flickering open. Without any warning they turn to the left, towards the master bedroom, "Some say that gods are only as powerful as they are worshipped. But you're right, I didn't mind, but this isn't a story about me."

 

"Erised, as a desert prince, was sent to be educated in the city after contact had been made. He was very bright but more than that he was very charismatic, so much that he almost glowed with it, that people could hardly dare to look at him for all his light."

 

On the word light Evans opened the doors into the room, sending out a pulse of magic once again, this time one more powerful that simply shattered the wards completely.

 

And as the light cast shadows on Harry Evans' face it seemed more than clear that there was nothing human in him.

 

"And because of that charisma he was able to do what no human being before had done before or since."

 

"What was that?"

 

"He was able to challenge a god." The man stepped inside the bedroom, walked over to a simple wooden box on the vanity and opened it, staring at a line of polished rings.

 

"A single man, in only ten years, launched the most successful revolution the empire had ever seen. And they believed in him, as they had never believed in anyone before, they cursed his name and prayed to it in the same breath. He took his home world back, then the next, and the next, and marched his way to the throne of the god emperor."

 

The man lifted a single plain ring from the box, one with a dark stone that looked as if it could have been plucked from a river bed, and as he stared at it there was something dull and flat in his expression.

 

"And I believed in him." For a moment the man just stood there, staring at the ring, neither giving it to Regulus or setting it aside.

 

"But he was Erised, my heart's most crippling desire, and he was mortal. He made it only a quarter of the way to my doorstep and so I never did get to meet him face to face."

 

He slipped the ring on his finger and finally turned his attention to Regulus, "We're all done here."

 

* * *

 

 

"That was surprisingly easy." The girl frowned, her eyes narrowing, staring out into the trees with unconcealed suspicion, "Too easy."

 

Regulus agreed completely.

 

After a day spent in the muggle village of Little Hangleton, rummaging through first the Riddle manor and then what remained of the Gaunt estates they had collected and destroyed one horcrux and so far it seemed that no one was the wiser.

 

"The others will not be nearly so simple to dispose of." Only the man, Harry Evans, was relaxed in all of this. He leaned against a tree with closed eyes, the firelight illuminating the red of his uniform as well as glinting off of the stolen ring.

 

He didn't look like a man who had just destroyed one of the dark lord's anchors to immortality.

 

"But where are the orcs, dad? Where's Saruman, the evil unconquerable army of mythical evil, anything?! One does not simply walk into Mordor!" The girl threw up her hands in frustration as if everything she had ever known had been betrayed by the lack of resistance on the dark lord's part.

 

"Only being Gandalf, rather than Sauron or Saruman, I wouldn't know." A quirk of the lips, a half smile produced by a man who had long since forgotten how to truly smile.

 

"This is the lamest quest ever." The girl sat, sighing, and placed her head in her hands, "Even if it did actually produce an evil ring. Points for that."

 

Harry Evans offered his daughter a polite, humoring, half smile and turned the conversation to something more useful, "Where next, Regulus?"

 

"Hogwarts or the Malfoy estates… Neither will be simple to infiltrate."

 

And there would be no hiding from the dark lord's eyes then, there was a price on Regulus' head already, and only by searching in old forgotten muggle areas had Regulus managed to stay alive so far.

 

Already he was watching the shadows for werewolves and whatever other dark creature the dark lord would send after him.

 

"Oh, goody, so it will be like an actual quest then." The girl smiled but quickly flailed when a branch from a nearby tree whacked her in the head.

 

She sent an accusing look at Evans, "What? That's the only reason we came along in the first place!"

 

The tree whacked her again, "Seriously, if you thought it was going to be this easy you never would have agreed and you know it!"

 

"Try not to be rude, Prongslet."

 

It was like a comedy scene in a bizarre play, a glimpse into the domestic life of two overpowered inhuman creatures who wore the faces of human, and Regulus was strangely fascinated by it.

 

"I'm not being rude, just honest! I know I was all for the quest aspects when I signed on to be the honorary samurai Legolas." Her eyes darted to the branch, waiting to be whacked in the head once again, but Evans seemed to be done and Eleanor allowed herself to relax.

 

But there was something that still bothered Regulus. More than the girl and her flippant attitude in a situation where she could very well die, seemingly unconcerned by her own history in this land, by the murder of her parents. More even then the stillness with which the man and girl held themselves, the way their shadows stretched into the dark, somehow visible even in the black night.

 

A small nagging suspicion that had grown as they'd wandered through the dark lord's father's house, "Evans, could you have destroyed him when you were an auror?"

 

And at once whatever amiable atmosphere there'd been was gone, the fire dimmed and without any warning faded into embers, the man's eyes turned to ice and glowed in the dark.

 

The idea only grew, sprouted from a single seed and growing higher and higher towards fruition, because he had always believed that of any of them Albus Dumbledore and Harry Evans were perhaps the only ones who stood a chance but…

 

But the way he'd moved through that house, effortlessly, without fear, speaking of gods and emperors…

 

"If Lily or James had asked then I might have."

 

(He saw the dark lord, smiling across at him, leering, a towering figure, cleaning the blood out of his carpet with a small flick of his wand.

 

The disemboweled corpse of Bellatrix's widower at his feet.

 

An example, he'd said, of the price of incompetency.)

 

"Why didn't you then? If you could have destroyed him then if you could have…"

 

"There's a lot of people I could have killed, maybe even should have. I could have killed Peter Pettigrew, I could have killed Voldemort, I could have killed Greyback, I could have killed Lucious Malfoy, and I could have killed you. But it wouldn't have saved Britain, it just would have left a dead martyr for your cause, and in a few years I wouldn't doubt that another Voldemort might pop into existence. And in the meantime, I'd find myself either in Azkaban or becoming the next Albus bloody Dumbledore. So forgive me if I didn't kill as many people as I could have."

 

And in those words Regulus saw every single face that Voldemort had destroyed in the past decades. Not only those he had killed but those he had driven to madness, suicide, despair, and destruction.

 

"Do you have any idea how many people he's killed?!"

 

"I once killed a woman called Bellatrix LeStrange, I stuck a knife into her heart and let her blood trickle down my arm, and after her body fell to the cobblestones I realized that there was still a war, there was still a dark lord, and nothing had changed. And I said to James Potter that I had saved the life of fifty-six people, thirty of them are now dead."

 

The fire blazed into life once again, the man's eyes softened, and it seemed as if the conversation was now over.

 

Only it wasn't, because the betrayal and horror was replaced by a steady rising anger, one that couldn't simply be pushed aside, "And if you feel so strongly about all this then why did you come with me now? Ten years after you let James and Lily Potter die!"

 

It was almost like shooting a spell into his back.<\p><p>Everyone had words, words you couldn't bear to hear, words that could not be said and Regulus had known that these would be Evans' words.

 

Not because they were true or because they were false but because of something deeper and darker than that.

 

These words were meant to kill.

 

"That's not how it works, Mr. Baggins." The girl interrupted, and wasn't it strange that Regulus had almost forgotten she was there? She was looking at him in a very similar manner that Evans had been doing, her eyes sharper than any eleven-year-old girl's eyes had any right to be, "Frodo has to take the ring. From an outside, logical, perspective it doesn't make any bloody sense. Frodo, not only isn't trained to fight, he's also pint sized and doesn't wear shoes; anybody could kill him. There were many more qualified people around to do it for him, Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, pretty much anyone who was not a hobbit."

 

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Not that he ever did, or that it ever seemed to bother her, but it hardly seemed the time or the place for Eleanor Lily Potter's nonsense.

 

"Tolkien says that it's because they're too powerful, too easily tempted by the power of the ring into darkness, and yes I suppose that's a convenient excuse but let's hypothetically pretend that isn't true. Say that, instead of Frodo and pals, it's Aragorn who takes the ring to Mordor like his ancestor Isildur did years before.

 

Say that he doesn't have much help, or if he does it's from people less impressive than him, maybe it's just him and Boromir in the ultimate medieval buddy movie. So it's hard, people don't really trust or like him all that much what with being a ranger and a threat to Gondor's current regime, but he does it anyway and after difficulties (but not nearly as many as Frodo's journey or anyone else's hypothetical journey) he does it, he gets to Mount Doom and destroys the ring." The girl paused and gave Regulus another assessing look before she continued, as if to see how far he had managed to follow along on this metaphorical quest of hers.

 

"Now, this is where things get interesting.

 

Aragorn, unofficial prince of Gondor, has just managed to almost single handedly destroy the greatest threat to life of the age. That being said he doesn't want to be king and the steward of Gondor really doesn't want him to be king; but this sort of act of heroism can't go unacknowledged either.

 

So Aragorn probably becomes something like hero of the realm and is more or less tasked with cleaning up evil magic and maybe hunting down Saruman before he can enslave the hobbits. And that's fine, for a while, but if you hold a ring of power too long you stop aging and so what would have been fine for a normal amount of time just keeps on going… And people notice, and they start to rely on you, and soon there are legends of your deeds and when the next dark wizard crops up you're expected to deal with it. And you do, the first time, but slaying the big bads is sort of like playing whack-a-mole, they just keep popping up.

 

So Aragorn plays whack-a-mole for a very long time, maybe he even gets to actually be king for part of it, but after a while he comes to realize that he can't stop playing whack-a-mole. Where everyone else gets to take the last boat to the west he is expected to stay behind.

 

And at some point, he realizes, that a hobbit, with a few more friends, a fair amount of luck, and a few giant eagles would have been able to do the same thing he did for half the price."

 

She stopped, gave him that same humorless grin that she'd had the first day he met her, clapped her hands together once and said, "And that, Mr. Black, is why dad didn't kill the Dread Pirate Roberts."

 

* * *

 

 

The next few weeks were spent planning their infiltration of the Malfoy manor, pouring over Regulus' memories of time spent with Lucius and his cousin Narcissa, and as such he was able to spend more time than he would have liked with his companions.

 

He had no idea what to think of either of them.

 

There was a part of him, a large part of him, that had grown to resent Evans. Here was a man who could have ended this years ago or else at the very least could have disposed of Peter Pettigrew before the man had murdered James and Lily Potter.

 

Yet he had done nothing, he had let them all kill each other and hadn't even lifted a finger to stop it, he had failed as secret keeper and he didn't even seem to truly mind. Oh, he grieved for James and Lily, every time he looked at their daughter his face made it seem like his heart was being ripped in half. There was some part of him that loathed himself, that was also evident, but it wasn't as strong as it should have been and instead there was this almost serene acceptance of this being the way things were.

 

(Severus had grown to loathe himself, by telling the dark lord the prophecy, the prophecy about Longbottom even and not the Potter's daughter, he had unwittingly condemned Lily Evans to death.

 

Evans showed none of the signs self-destruction that Severus had all but wallowed in.)

 

Yet, there was also a part of him that recognized that Evans was here now, ten years later true and reluctantly but since setting out he had never once given any indication that he would back out and leave Regulus to die.

 

And the girl, the girl didn't seem to resent him at all. There was nothing strained between them, no hints of what might have been, nothing about her real father and mother, nothing about England or Hogwarts or the life she should have had. But she wasn't ignorant either, the girl knew, and seemed to know more details even than Regulus did.

 

She just didn't mind.

 

There must be something worthy in him, Regulus couldn't help but think, if the girl could love him that much and have that much faith in him in spite of everything that had happened.

 

Ultimately, as they kept an eye on the Malfoy estates and movements and Regulus kept an eye on the pair of them, he decided to more or less settle for Ellie's original explanation of her father.

 

Harry Evans, above all else, was infuriatingly mysterious. Perhaps apathetic, perhaps nihilistic, perhaps inhuman but mostly mysterious.

 

To the point where Regulus wondered how James Potter could have stood him and how they had ever managed to get close enough to be considered friends.

 

But that was beside the point.

 

Watching who had access, who entered when, learning the names of the house elves and if they could be bought or manipulated into searching for them, it was clear that it was Regulus who was in charge and not Evans. Even though the man clearly was more powerful, had more experience, and even seemed to have this eerie sense of exactly what was going on (even going so far as to predict one demented house elf's name being Dobby) he always pushed Regulus to plan and lead them.

 

It was going to be Regulus who destroyed the horcruxes and Regulus who killed the dark lord and the man in black would be nothing more than a footnote.

 

Eleanor Lily Potter was obnoxious in an entirely different manner.

 

"I have an idea." She said at one point, crawling up to him in a camouflaged muggle outfit, the kind that their militaries wore. There was no explanation of how she found the outfit, or how she transfigured it without a wand, or even why she felt the need to wear such ridiculous clothing on an almost daily basis. Regulus had learned to stop expecting these sorts of explanations.

 

They were outside the estate, peering in through the gates, and marking the anchors of the wards around the grounds which were both numerous and complicated.

 

Lucius certainly hadn't let security slide since Regulus had been gone. Of course, Lucius was one of the few who had done well and he knew it.

 

After all, Bellatrix had been stabbed through the heart, Regulus had gone rogue and now had to watch every shadow for an assassin, Severus had committed suicide, and that wasn't even getting to what had happened to their enemies.

 

Lucius had been very lucky and it appeared as if he was well aware of this fact.

 

"What if we build a Trojan Peacock?" The girl grinned at him as if this was the most brilliant thing he had ever heard.

 

"A Trojan Peacock?"

 

"A giant wooden peacock, hollow on the inside, we leave it outside their gates and wait inside, they bring us in, and then we pop out and steal their evil soul container. Easy, just like in Troy." She spared a glance for the albino peacocks strutting about on the lawn, "After all, they clearly have a thing for peacocks."

 

They did not build a giant wooden peacock.

 

However, not all of their conversations were worthless, some were quite enlightening. He finally began to have a clear picture of Eleanor Lily Potter's upbringing.

 

"It's always been me and dad, everyone else comes and goes, you included." She said at one point, lying on her back and staring at the clouds, "It's nice, other people keep things interesting, but at the same time it gets uncomfortable when they try to stick around too long. Because, me and dad, we're not like them and we never will be."

 

She didn't explain what being like them, like Regulus, meant or how she and Evans were something else entirely.

 

"It's probably better, actually, that I don't have to go to Hogwarts or England. I'd much rather travel around with the man in black anyway, you know that's the first thing I really remember, sitting with dad as he sold someone a miracle."

 

"Don't you want to make friends though?" Meet children your own age, know someone intimately besides the broken man in black?

 

"You mean like Malfoy junior?" She said nodding towards the manor where Draco had shown his face every once in a while, "Why? He doesn't look all that interesting, he looks like he thinks he's ridiculously interesting, but that's not the same thing. Unless he's on par with an adventure with dad then it's not even worth bothering."

 

The girl had seen all the wonders of the world, walked barefoot on clouds and starlight, weaved the northern lights into a tapestry, and everything in her reached out for something new and brilliant and beyond any human's grasp.

 

She had traveled with the man in black, Harry Evans, since she was a year old and England became dull to her.

 

But she loved Evans, her father, and he loved her.

 

Regulus did not think his own parents had loved him as much as they loved each other.

 

And he learned, casually from her as always, that he was nothing more than a mayfly to them. There one instant, in need one instant, but once the horcruxes had been destroyed and Voldemort was dead…

 

"After? I don't know, I kind of want to go see the moon, or maybe Mars, dad says there's nothing there worth seeing but you know… space… There's just something you've got to love about space."

 

There wasn't even a hint of longing for England in her eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

It should have gone off seamlessly, given how much they had planned and thought of in advance, but of course perhaps because of that alone there was nothing seamless about it.

 

They'd waited until the night of a ministry ball, one Lucius, Narcissa, and even Draco would have no choice but to attend and would be forced to endure for hours on end. Regulus wondered if anyone had enjoyed those balls, Merlin knew at the time he'd found them tedious, and no doubt the dark lord himself did too.

 

He remembered in those first few years of victory, as Severus had been sliding uncontrollably into depression, that they had made a game out of seeing which of them could get more sloshed off the ministry's champagne without anyone catching wise. Unfortunately, they'd both ended up so drunk that neither of them could recall who had won.

 

And when it was only the house elves left in the place Evans had set his hand to the ground and released that pulse of magic to test and unravel the wards.

 

Then silently they made their way inside, Regulus leading the way to the hidden trap door that lead to the room containing the Malfoy's darkest family secrets, most likely where the notebook would have been kept.

 

Again, this went rather smoothly, with Evans unlocking the wards and Ellie wandlessly maintaining a potent notice me not about them and keeping watch for the elves.

 

It started to fall apart when they failed to find the notebook in the basement.

 

"He wouldn't… He wouldn't leave it upstairs where Draco could find it." Regulus felt panic boiling in his stomach, feeling everything falling apart, because the grimoires were down here but the book was not.

 

Evans for his own part was unnervingly calm, flicking through ancient Malfoy heirlooms with a steady gaze, a small frown the only hint that things were going off the rails.

 

Because Regulus only had two places he could think of to look, here, and at Hogwarts. And he knew the notebook had been here, and if it wasn't here now then Voldemort had moved it, and if he had moved it…

 

Then he knew and he would come for them and his vengeance would be something that even the dead wouldn't envy.

 

(And there was the cave, looming inside his head with that yawning black mouth, the very gate to the river Styx.)

 

"…He left the ring at his father's, with minimal protection… He wasn't supposed to leave the ring at his father's." Evans said, slowly and softly, coming to some realization perhaps the same realization that Regulus was having.

 

A thump sounded, from above their heads, and the girl asked, "You said they would be partying all night long, right?"

 

Then there were voices, the closing of a door, footsteps, and the Malfoys had returned home early from the ministry.

 

"I thought you took down the wards!" Regulus said and Evans nodded.

 

"I don't think they know, they're not panicked, and they haven't looked here yet either."

 

The small amount of relief Regulus had was short lived as he asked, "Then can we apparate out?"

 

"No, the wards are back up, and I wouldn't have time to cause them to do anything more than flicker with Lucius Malfoy inside the place."

 

Which meant they would have to wait and hope they all went upstairs to sleep without opening the trapdoor or else they would have to fight their way back out. If they waited then they lost the element of surprise and they would be essentially cornered into the basement with only one avenue of escape, if they left beforehand…

 

Then Lucius would know, the dark lord would know…

 

The girl Ellie withdrew her blade, stepping towards the stairs with steel in her eyes.

 

"What are you doing?!"

 

"The dark lord already knows, right? You were muttering that hysterically just a few seconds ago. And chances are he knows it's you… They'll smoke us out if we wait down here like sitting ducks." The girl explained.

 

"But if he doesn't…"

 

"I think, from what everyone has said about the guy, you can assume he does." She looked at her father, her hand on the handle of the trap door, ready to fling it open, and for a moment he only looked back at her before giving her a miniscule nod of approval.

 

Then she was out, darting into the living room, and sprinting towards the window.

 

Evans was after her, flying up into the spell light, and dragging Regulus along with him.

 

For a moment his eyes had met Lucius and Lucius' eyes him, time seemed to slow as they stared at each other, shock erasing all expression from Lucius' face.

 

Then they were gone, crashing out the window and hurtling over the gate, and apparting somewhere far from Lucius' property.

 

* * *

 

 

"Hey, this isn't fair, why don't I have a wanted poster?" Ellie spared a baleful glance at Regulus then Harry Evans, "You guys both got wanted posters, dad's is the most intimidating thing I've ever seen, where's my wanted poster?"

 

A week after the Malfoy heist gone wrong and there were wanted posters all over England and Scotland. Public enemy number one, Regulus Black, traitor to the state and emperor (as if Britain and Voldemort were now synonymous).

 

(He knew, the dark lord knew, and if they weren't delivered to his door soon then he would come after them personally…)

 

How was it that the girl was completely unconcerned?!

 

It was as if she was being purposefully obtuse or else really was as idiotic as she sometimes acted. James Potter might have been an idiot but with Lily Evans in that genetic mix surely something more intelligent would have been produced.

 

"It's because I'm eleven, isn't it? I'm starting to get the feeling that children are to be neither seen nor heard where the dark lord is concerned. If he wanted us seen then he'd at least get me my own bloody poster."

 

"It will be difficult to get inside Hogwarts with our faces plastered on every wall between London and Hogsmeade." Evans summarized, ignoring Ellie's prattle with efficiency that spoke of years of practice.

 

"Your faces plastered on every wall, you mean." The girl said before adding, "Apparently I'm not tall or manly enough to take seriously."

 

"Impossible, it will be impossible to get inside Hogwarts now." Merlin knew it would have been hard enough before, but now, when Regulus couldn't trust to stand in a street without a curse aimed at his back…

 

Because someone would be sent after them, they had been lucky so far, but already there had been close calls. Already they had passed under Fenrir Greyback's yellow eyes, barely hidden by a few wards, his rancid breath hitting the back of their necks as they'd walked by.

 

"Difficult, not impossible." The man said, his eyes caught on the posters, "I just need to think."

 

They didn't have time to think, or Regulus didn't at the very least, because these two could disappear from whence they came and it would be Regulus left behind to deal with the consequences.

 

"Uncle Sirius is probably going to show up, isn't he?"

 

This, apparently, was worthy of Evans' attention as he whipped his head towards Ellie, his eyes widening in realization.

 

"With your face all over England… He's found us off of less before." Ellie gave a small nod to Evans' face, a blinking portrait based off of an old auror photograph, "It'd be a bit much to deal with this and him at the same time."

 

"Sirius is…"

 

"A problem, a large problem…" Ellie trailed off and sighed looking as if she had just reached the limit of her patience, "Look, I get that he was James Potter's best friend, I get that he's basically my uncle, and I get that he's your… something, but I am tired of having to look over our shoulders for the grim."

 

"It's not forever."

 

"No, it's just for the rest of his life." Ellie interjected, "Plus, he's getting desperate, if he figures out that you're unkillable he'll start getting creative. And being in the middle of a quest to destroy the evil empire, throw seven evil rings in the fiery pits of Mount Doom (of which we've only managed to get rid of two), and keep Frodo Baggins relatively sane and alive it isn't the time to deal with Uncle Sirius' creativity."

 

The girl frowned, adding once again before the man in black could interrupt, "And besides, every time he does catch up to us, it takes just a little bit more out of you."

 

"Perhaps." And that seemed to be all he was willing to say, to either of them, leaving them to just stare at their faces on the walls and wonder how they would ever get past this.

 

Because it was clear that it would take time, the castle wasn't the manor, Voldemort could have hidden the horcruxes anywhere including the Chamber of Secrets which only he would have had access to.

 

Polyjuice was too limiting time wise (they would have to kidnap the students and keep them somewhere very close), the wards prevented glamours, and they couldn't count on simply going in disillusioned and being undetected.

 

Hogwarts was a fortress for a reason.

 

Behind them, in the street, Regulus tensed at the sounds of children's laughter. And that was when it hit him, it was summer, Hogwarts classes would be starting in September, and there was only one of them who didn't have her face staring out of every shop window.

 

Eleanor Potter would be twelve years old but she could pass for eleven; perhaps even pass for human if she had to.

 

(Of course some part of him balked at that because he had been traveling with them for almost a month and the girl had yet to pass for human for even ten minutes and asking her to try might just be impossible.

 

Evans, at least, appeared to know that he was off, that he was different. The girl seemed to have no idea whatsoever.

 

And if she was caught… If she was caught then everything he'd warned the man in black about would come true, and more.

 

If she was caught there would be nothing left of her.)

 

But she could, perhaps, in the right light pass for an ordinary eleven-year-old girl… And she didn't need to be convincing, she just needed to be inside.

 

"What?"

 

* * *

 

 

"… This sounds terrible." Ellie Potter was staring at the piles of books required for her classes, as well as the cauldron, robes, and other supplies which were continued mandatory and she did not look impressed.

 

"Can't one of you do it instead?"

 

"Yours is the only face that they're unlikely to recognize." And there were few who could put two and two together where Ellie Potter and Harry Evans were concerned, few enough that Regulus was hoping they wouldn't be paying attention to the incoming class.

 

The dark lord had long since stopped paying attention to tedious paperwork such as student registration, surely if Regulus and Evans provided enough of a distraction, he wouldn't take notice.

 

"Oh, so not only am I too short and feminine for wanted posters but now I have to suffer through wizard school. Great, I am thrilled beyond imagination."

 

He wondered what she would say if he told her there were many who would die to be where she was now, who had died for the right to attend Hogwarts, that it was only because of her last name that they would consider her admittance and that those whose blood was more sullied were forced to attend a trade school that had only the barest excuse of a magical curriculum, designed to keep mudbloods in their place.

 

Of those only the best and brightest could crawl out of the slums and earn a scholarship to Hogwarts and those would be few and far between.

 

A war had been fought and lost for the right of any child to attend Hogwarts.

 

"It will be fun, Prongslet." Evans said, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it for support.

 

"I'm hunting down evil soul rings in my spare time."

 

"Perhaps you'll even make a few friends." Evans continued, smiling, ignoring his adopted daughter's sulking. And although he looked calm enough Regulus had learned enough to be able to know that his expression is one of borderline panic, and that he was in fact quite terrified of this idea, and for good reason.

 

"And inside the magical boarding school we can hunt down the evil headmaster and foil all of his plans with the power of friendship and holiday television specials. And he can say, 'I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids'. I've gone from Lord of the Rings to Scooby Doo, I think that's all I have to say." This was accompanied by exaggerated hand gestures, ridiculous impersonations of what Regulus assumed was supposed to be Voldemort or else Grindelwald from old ministry posters, and then a very irritated expression at the end that just dared them to contradict her.

 

So of course the man in black did just that, "I feel like I should be somewhat concerned that you've managed to watch this much television. Especially since I don't remember watching Scooby Doo in the past eleven years."

 

This didn't appear to be the answer the girl wanted.

 

"I've never even been to Hogwarts, how the hell am I supposed to know where to look?!" Neither of them had an answer to this, if only because the Chamber of Secrets' location was only known to the dark lord, and that it might truly be impossible to find all the crannies of the castle.

 

"Look for the light of his soul, something broken and burning, you should be able to see it even through the walls."

 

"... I'll keep that in mind." Ellie sighed once again and spared an irritated glance at the wand that she had spent the last ten minutes twirling carelessly between her fingertips, as if it was no more than a muggle pen, "This is going to be the worst."

 

"You'll be fine."

 

"The worst." Ellie repeated with insistence.

 

The two shared a look, one that had a thousand words inside of it, none of which Regulus could clearly make out. There was fear, alarm, loneliness, love, affection, nostalgia, optimism, almost every facet of human emotion inside there.

 

"You sure you don't want to come?" Ellie finally asked, letting the wand rest in between her fingertips, stopping its spinning.

 

"Someone must keep him distracted on the outside." He leaned down, kissed her on the forehead, "You'll be fine, Ellie."

 

* * *

 

 

September 1st 1992.

 

A disguised Harry Evans saw Eleanor Potter off at the station, hugging her closely and ignoring the eyes that lingered on her bright red hair, and the whispers about the missing Potter heir who had somehow escaped the massacre in 1981.

 

Regulus stood, watching out of sight, praying to whatever god might listen that Voldemort still was removed from Hogwarts and the admission process. That he would not have paid attention to the letters going out and Eleanor Potter's name had not caught his eye.

 

When the Hogwarts Express disappeared from sight Harry Evans stared after it with an empty yet somehow pained expression. As if everything he had ever known and loved was on that train and that by watching it disappear he lost hold of it completely.

 

But it was Harry Evans who had agreed to take her in the first place, who seemed obsessed with Eleanor Potter's growing independence (to the point where he would endanger her life), and so he didn't run after the train.

 

He just watched.

 

* * *

 

 

They ended up robbing Gringotts three times in the following month and then another three times after that.

 

Robbing Gringotts successfully, not only once, but three times.

 

He found he was doing a lot of things he hadn't thought were possible and that he'd somehow grown desensitized to it. He spent less and less time questioning who (what) Harry Evans was, what powers he had, and instead focused on where to go next and what to look for, and just taking for granted that they would be successful.

 

(Although sometimes he wondered what they had meant when they said god emperor or that he was unkillable.)

 

They started with Lucius' (looking for that damned notebook), then Narcissa's, and slowly worked their way through the remaining Death Eaters always with an eye out for some founder's relic.

 

Mostly, though, it was a diversion from Hogwarts. To make it very clear that Harry Evans and Regulus Black were too busy robbing Gringotts and escaping on the backs of dragons to possibly be inside the castle.

 

And it seemed to be working, because Ellie Potter continued to send her weekly terse letters, all with the update that Hogwarts was terrible, she didn't understand pureblood politics, and she had yet to find any horcruxes.

 

Apparently she was also driving some mudblood scholarship student, Hermione Granger, who'd proven one of those few smart enough to justify her blood, up the wall with her antics and her frankly terrifying magical talent.

 

But as September turned into October and then into November and no horcrux was to be found either in Hogwarts itself or else in Gringotts Regulus began to get worried.

 

He began to dream about the cave again, waking up sweating and shaking to the sight of the Harry Evans staring at him, his eyes that empty endless green.

 

When the holidays began to approach, when Ellie started sending letters about the break, asking if she was supposed to come back or if she was to keep looking (not leaving out her various miscellaneous adventures that always ended with something on fire), Evans began asking questions that Regulus had never considered asking even himself.

 

Questions about the dark lord.

 

"You were in his inner circle, you knew him, looked into his history… What is he like?"

 

Terrifying.

 

It was the first word that came into his head and one that refused to make way for any other word. There should be a more poetic description, something longer and more substantial, but everything escaped him and there was only that word.

 

The dark lord, above all else, was terrifying.

 

On the edge of a clearing, hidden in the deep woods, the chill of winter in the wind and a small fire between them Regulus could still feel the shadow of that man falling over him.

 

"Regulus, I need to know. What sort of a man are we dealing with?"

 

"He is… He has no flaws, or at least, no weaknesses. And every time he slips, every time you think you see something to use against him, you realize it was only what he allowed you to see." After all, this had been Bellatrix's downfall, she had thought she had seen something in him, something that valued her above all others, and it had ruined her.

 

For a moment Evans said nothing to this, just stared forward into the flames, and then quietly, "He's not what I remembered him being."

 

"What?"

 

"There's no fits of rage, no wild panic, none of his impatience and bouts of temper, only this unnerving silence… I don't know this man."

 

No, the dark lord's temper was a cold and patient thing, it either was fast as lightning (to make an example of you) or it waited and simmered until you had thought he had forgotten about you entirely. But he never forgot about you.

 

October 1981.

 

Towards the end of the month, the newly indoctrinated Peter Pettigrew bowed desperately before the dark lord and his inner circle.

 

"My lord, Evans knows, he knows everything and he will kill me soon if…"

 

He did not even finish before the dark lord spoke, "Well then, Wormtail, it seems as if your choices are limited."

 

No one dared to breathe, Regulus behind a silver mask, could not look away from the sniveling young man on the floor.

 

"You see, Eleanor Lily Potter must die, and it would be convenient if James Potter and his wife were to die with her." The dark lord stepped down from his seat, walked to Peter, and lifted his chin forcing Peter to look in his eye, "Now, you could attempt to subdue Harry Evans, the greatest auror that Britain has ever seen, and deliver him to me. It would be brave of you, perhaps even valiant, but it is also very likely to get you killed and get me nothing."

 

The dark lord leaned in closer, his face a few scant inches from Peter's and a smile on his lips, "There is the other, simpler, option that is bound to be more successful. You, Wormtail, have access to Potter's location. This alone means that you can walk in, kill James Potter, kill his wife, and kill their daughter without giving any thought to Harry Evans and what he might do. But of course, it means that you cannot valiantly sacrifice yourself to Harry Evans or even let someone else do your work for you."

 

Suddenly the dark lord grabbed Peter, moved his lips to the man's ears, and said, "Do not think that Harry Evans is the only man who can hunt you down and skin you alive and do not think that I am too stupid to see your transparent excuses for what they are!"

 

The dark lord leaned back, took Peter's arm, and rolled back the sleeve until the dark mark was showing, "And Peter? Remember that, unlike Harry Evans, I will always know where you are."

 

He placed his fingers on the serpent and Peter Pettigrew screamed in agony.

 

("No, no, he's not like that at all.")

 

* * *

 

 

Dear Dad and Frodo Baggins,

 

Today I learned that apparently there used to be four houses in Hogwarts but the dark lord thought they were stupid so he got rid of all but two.

 

Apparently he does that a lot, gets rid of things he thinks are dumb. I guess that's what you get to do when you're an evil empire overlord. I actually kind of approve of this practice, if I was the unquestionable emperor of a nation, then I'd get rid of things too. Of course, he didn't get rid of quidditch, so there's that. He also didn't get rid of the ghosts, I mean, if you're going to get rid of Muggle Studies you can at least get rid of Moaning Myrtle.

 

Anyway, there used to be four houses, instead of just Ravenclaw and Slytherin. You had Hufflepuff, for useless ridiculous people who suck at everything but try really hard, and Gryffindor, reckless idiots who charge into things bravely.

 

I just wonder why he didn't get rid of Slytherin and Ravenclaw while he was at it. I mean, I'm really not getting this sorting thing, also I sort of destroyed the hat…

 

This fact of the day is brought to you by Hermione Granger, who has decided she is my friend, I have no idea where she got this impression. Probably because everyone else throws food at her and calls her mudblood.

 

I am the default friend option.

 

Just like television holiday specials.

 

In other more important news I tried looking in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom for evil trinkets… It may have ended up on fire, I may have also learned how to exorcise ghosts… I now have detention for the rest of the year and the next time something explodes I'll probably be expelled.

 

Also, heads up, Hermione asked if she could join the fellowship over break. Apparently, as a muggle born, she no longer legally has parents (and they actually have no memories of her) and she'd have to go back to this terrifying orphanage where children disappear every once in a while.

 

I think they're probably being used in genetic experiments or else being fed to a dangerous abominable demon that the dark lord has summoned to conquer France. It's the only explanation.

 

We could make her a hobbit? We are lacking in the hobbit departments on our quest. You could always use another hobbit…

 

Let me know,

 

Ellie

 

* * *

 

 

It would be the last letter they received from her.

 

* * *

 

 

December 1st, 1992.

 

There is a certain art to tragedy.

 

It is the art of that which is inescapable, that which we long see coming but we fail to contradict, oftentimes because of our own innate and fatal flaws.

 

Hubris, arrogance, righteousness, pride, ambition, nihilism, naiveté, all things which form the great engine of the train that barrels ever closer to that final stop.

 

There were several tragic heroes.

 

There was Sirius Black, fashioning himself into a demented Hamlet, forsaking everything for revenge against a man who was incapable of dying.

 

There was Regulus Black himself, who had lost everyone and everything he had once believed in, who knew that he was playing into a trap, but couldn't help but believe he had managed to outwit a man who had planned everything from the very beginning.

 

But there was one who stood above the others as he always had.

 

The man in black, once Harry Evans, and once Harry Potter, who feared above all else being shackled by his own reputation and fashioned into the image of a king. And although he was willing to suffer devastating loss, to lose everything he once loved and believed in, this in itself was not his great flaw.

 

He had created himself one final hope in the form or Regulus Black, a man who at one time might have been a great figure, but was now a rather common and desperate man. In this man he saw the opportunity to step to the side and move behind the green curtain, to stay out of the dreaded lime light, and save his country while remaining anonymous to it.

 

This was delusion.

 

(How can eyes that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale?)

 

* * *

 

 

"She hasn't written back." Evans was pacing, a strange sight, normally the man was terrifyingly still. He walked back and forth between one tree and the next in a constant hurried motion looking only ahead and then back whenever he pivoted.

 

"It's been two weeks and she hasn't written." Evans repeated, and it was true, Ellie had now missed two of the days she was to check in, "Something's happened."

 

"Perhaps she forgot."

 

"No, not this, she knows better than that."

 

"To be fair you were the one to leave her there and the one to bring her on this mad hunt for horcruxes in the first place."

 

Evans stopped pacing, turned his head to glare at Regulus, his shadow quivering behind him as Evans' magic began to bleed into the air.

 

"I can still be concerned!"

 

"Only if you want to admit to your rather appalling hypocrisy."

 

What Evans would say to this Regulus would never find out, whether he fully admitted that he could not have it both ways, that Regulus didn't even understand why it'd had to be this way at all. At that moment, instead of answering him, Evan's eyes moved to the forest and his expression changed to one of helpless resignation.

 

At first there was nothing, only trees, but then the quiet rustling of foliage could be heard and a mangy black dog came into view. Its eyes were dark pits and it stared ahead at them, baring its teeth and growling, and it stalked towards them with clear intent to kill.

 

And then it was transforming into a man, one with matted black hair, hollowed out cheeks, a pale unshaven face, and those dark baleful eyes that were so similar to Regulus'.

 

Regulus had not seen Sirius in years, perhaps since 1981, when the Order of the Phoenix accused him of the death of James and Lily Potter. But then, even then, Sirius had been so different than only a few years before when he had graduated Hogwarts.

 

Life had not been kind to Sirius.

 

He, like Regulus, looked like a man who had died years ago but was too obstinate to admit it.

 

At the sight of him Evans stiffened, his fingertips twitching slightly, but not making a move to apparate or even confront Sirius. (And all at once Ellie's words are returning to him, she had said something about Sirius, about confrontations but he couldn't quite remember…)

 

Sirius said nothing at first, was just coolly eyeing the pair of them, his wand in his hand but not yet brought up to either of them. And that was nothing like he had been, Sirius had always been confrontational, the first to shoot his mouth off without thought for what he was saying or how he wanted to say it. Sirius had always delighted in verbal warfare both with his friends and his enemies.

 

"Making friends, Evans? I see you've abandoned my goddaughter. Left little Ellie in some ditch somewhere for the maggots to pick at."

 

Evans did not defend himself or offer any explanation, he said nothing about Eleanor Potter, in Hogwarts missing her deadlines. Instead, he simply asked, "How did you find us?"

 

And Regulus was wondering this as well because if there anything Evans was, besides infuriating and overpowered, he was diligent. He'd been extremely careful with the wards and apparition, and true, they'd been focusing on Gringotts for some time but they hadn't camped in the same place during those months.

 

They'd had some close calls with Death Eaters, both new recruits and familiar faces, but none had managed to track them down so far.

 

"You didn't leave much of a trail, but the Death Eaters following you did, practically swarming the countryside looking for you. Besides, you should know, we all hide in all the same places. Probably been here myself once or twice." Sirius' eyes never left Evans' face, not even bothering to look at their surroundings.

 

If Sirius had come back to England when they had been discovered by the Malfoys then it had taken him quite some time to find them. Yet, he didn't mention a word of this, if you listened to him he made it seem as if it was effortless.

 

"Regulus you should…" Evans started only to be interrupted by Sirius.

 

"Hold it, Reggie stays right here with the bloody rest of us." The wand was out and pointed at Regulus' head.

 

"He has nothing to do with…"

 

"No! This is personal! It's not every day I get to see my bastard Death Eater brother and the man who stabbed James in the bloody back all in the same day!" Sirius shouted, "I have waited over ten bloody years for this day, I'm not going to go wasting it."

 

Before Evans could bring up his hands and use his wandless magic, spells performed only by small hand gestures, Sirius turned the wand and petrified him leaving Evans caught in a half-motion.

 

"Ah ha, not so quick on the draw now, are you bastard? Course, you could be, but I think you've been waiting too. Every other time you've been too busy kidnapping Prongslet to pay me any attention, but she's not here today, and I think that deep down you want me to win. You want to pay for what you did to them."

 

Regulus, before Sirius could turn his wand on him, drew his own wand and began the incantation to disarm him but before he could get halfway through the wand movements he was forced to duck as red light shot towards him.

 

"Come on, Reggie, I may be a Gryffindor but I was never bloody stupid."

 

No, Sirius had never been stupid, even when he'd tried to be.

 

"Sirius, it isn't what it looks like. I'm not…"

 

"A Death Eater? Yeah, I've noticed you don't seem too chummy with the dark lord lately, got your face on every wall in the country. But that's the thing about being a Death Eater, Reggie, you can never go back from it!" He sneered, motioning at Regulus' left arm, with his wandless hand.

 

Sirius had never listened, not when they were children, when they were adolescents, or when they were adults on opposite sides of the war. He had always had that confidence in his own righteousness and nothing would let him falter.

 

There would be no convincing him now just as there had been no convincing him years ago when he had spat in their father's face and walked out the door without a glance backward.

 

Leaving Regulus behind.

 

(He was so tired of this war.)

 

"Sirius, listen to me, I have information on the dark lord that…" Regulus barely had time to erect a shield when another beam of red light shot towards him.

 

"Oh, save the bullshit, Reggie." Sirius said, patronizing, and then added, "Ten years ago, I would have cared about information on the bloody dark lord. But he's won, it's over, Albus Dumbledore is dead, James is dead, Peter's dead, Remus is Merlin knows where thinking I killed James and Lily, and at this point the only thing I really care about is making sure Harry Evans joins them all in the most painful way possible. You couldn't pay me to hear your very important information on the dark lord."

 

"And your goddaughter?"

 

"Don't talk about my goddaughter!"

 

Which was his way of saying that Eleanor Potter could wait, as she'd no doubt waited for ten years, because while Ellie had happened to be with Harry Evans all that time if they ever had split apart… Sirius would have gone after Evans first.

 

Sirius would always go after Evans first, even if Voldemort was standing wandless right in front of him, because that was the sort of man that the war had turned Sirius into.

 

There would be no reasoning with Sirius Black.

 

And with that thought Regulus set up the shield once again, darting to the side as Sirius began screaming spells, the syllables almost unintelligible for their senseless repetition after years of use as an auror and then on the run.

 

The trouble was that Sirius had always been better than Regulus when it came to dueling, to war, he was taller, stronger, faster, and he had a passion for violence that Regulus just couldn't seem to grasp. Where Regulus had always thought too much, had been able to memorize the more complicated spells but never able to use them quickly, Sirius had always been about speed and raw power.

 

Every shield was only a temporary barrier, easily brought down by Sirius, and soon the red light turned sickly into something darker and far more violent. Suddenly it was no longer about paralysis or disarmerment but instead about pain beyond imagination and death. None were green, not yet, Sirius had too much of an opinion of himself to use something unforgivable but in a way the spells he was casting were far worse than a quick and painless death by green light.

 

All at once it occurred to Regulus that he was going to lose this fight.

 

That he was going to be killed, not by Fenrir Greyback, by Lucius Malfoy, or even by the dark lord himself but instead by his own deranged brother.

 

Time seemed to slow as it clicked together, how he had managed to come so far yet nowhere at all, because this must have been what the dark lord had planned for him. The moment Regulus had entered the cave, or perhaps even the moment Regulus had joined the Death Eaters, this was the death that the dark lord had planned.

 

With his brother as the unwitting pawn.

 

Watching and ducking away from the spell light, listening to his heart beat, feeling the sweat running down his brow he acknowledged that it was a truly gruesome end and that it would undoubtedly be a more painful demise than an assassin would have granted him but all the same…

 

All the same he was almost relieved, because now he knew, and while it was ironic it did not seem so terrible.

 

The knowledge of the horcruxes didn't necessarily die with him, Evans was still alive (but for how much longer), and there was the girl too (although she too might already be dead). Still, even with his doubts, it did not seem like such a terrible way to die.

 

And then there it was, the final spell he was too slow to dodge, again not green but something black and purple that oozed with malice, for all his anger and rage Sirius would never stoop to what the ministry considered to be unforgiveable. In that, at least, he could always tell himself that he was lighter and less despicable than the Death Eaters he'd once so eagerly opposed.

 

The bolt of light stopped, twitching and jerking in midair, inches from his face and he found he couldn't move, could only stare straight at it dumbly almost blinded. The spell buzzed in front of him, vibrating, and he could hear nothing above that terrible noise.

 

Then, unable to watch, he heard movement and then footsteps, and then a calm and collected voice, "Enough, Sirius."

 

The sweat on Regulus' brow turned cold, his hair stood on end, but both he and apparently Sirius were both still frozen in place. Only Evans moved, he reached for the spell, grabbed hold of the light and twisted it into some calmer, a dark aurora in the palm of his hand.

 

"I always thought, that the day I let you catch up to me, it would only be my blood spilled. It seemed like a fitting end, perhaps unfair to you, but… I've paid for too many of my sins in the blood of other people. It's time I stopped."

 

He turned his head away from Regulus, towards Sirius, so that Regulus couldn't see his expression while he spoke but his words were resigned and said in a manner of something that has long since been bottled up and only now is being said, "I didn't mean to kill Bellatrix, if you hadn't been there she might still be alive today. But you were there and I felt something that I thought I was incapable of feeling, fear. She could kill you so easily, would go out of her way to do so and I… I couldn't let that happen.

 

When I met Peter Pettigrew he wasn't a Death Eater yet, he was just a frightened little man who was friends with all the wrong people. I knew that he would grow desperate enough to turn to the Dark Lord, to sell James, Lily, and Ellie for his own worthless soul. But I thought that I could give him one last chance.

 

Go to India, I said, go there and never look back for the rest of your pitiful existence.

 

After all, he wasn't the secret keeper anymore, I was. He wouldn't be able to give the dark lord or any of the Death Eaters access to Godric's Hollow. And I thought… I thought that would be enough. But he did something I never imagined he would be capable of.

 

He killed them himself and he sent you to distract me. You, one of the few people who I couldn't dare to hurt, not even for James. And it was so clever, absurdly clever, that he used you rather than anyone else. Because if it had been anyone else… Then it is very likely that I would have arrived in time for Lily and James. But it wasn't, so I didn't, and we both waited until you could punish me for my inaction."

 

He turned away from Sirius, staring up at the black sky for a moment with a strange sad smile on his face, "I once had a dream that I could outrun my own shadow if I travelled fast enough. I thought that either Voldemort could collapse on his own or else that someone might destroy him for me. But if there is a price then I can't pay it in Regulus' blood, in my own violent death at your hands, or with the death and imprisonment of my daughter at the hands of a dark lord… My punishment must be infinitely worse than that."

 

The light in his hands briefly flared, turning into something truly blinding, and formed itself into a laurel wreath, "I must once again become a king."

 

He placed the crown on his head, walked over to Sirius, took his wand, and used wandless magic to propel it deep into the underbrush. Then he turned and spared Regulus one final glance, "I will dispose of your dark emperor, Regulus, until then… Stay alive and I will find you."

 

The man disappeared and they were back where they had been only minutes earlier.

 

Back where they were, only Sirius was wandless, and Harry Evans had given Regulus the small window of opportunity to apparate away unscathed and thus escape the fate the dark lord had written for him. For a moment, watching as Sirius cursed and scrambled for his wand, Regulus hesitated.

 

He found his eyes drifting to their surroundings.

 

The trees were beautiful in the winter sunlight, it would be twilight soon, and the shadows would stretch and dance in a way that he hadn't thought of before that moment. The world was more beautiful than he had realized, he wondered if Severus had thought that, as he'd drunk his homemade poison.

 

The world was too beautiful to leave so painfully.

 

As Sirius' hand grabbed his wand there was a loud bang and turned to find the clearing empty, only his shadow stretching behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

A man and a girl, seated across a table of untouched biscuits and two cups of tea, the man smiling pleasantly while the girl just stared blankly back. The room itself was ornate, over decorated, something that hearkened back to old French palaces that had been so extravagant as to cause revolution.

 

The walls were positively caked in gold.

 

Neither the man nor the girl seemed to pay this much mind, it wasn't, after all, her first time in this room.

 

"Would you care for…" The man began, making a motion towards the table with a pale elegant hand, but the girl quickly cut him off.

 

"It's probably poisoned."

 

"What makes you say that?" He almost sounded insulted except that insulted for this man was a death sentence for those around him. Insulting rank too much of humiliation and disrespect for him to truly stomach. So this light hearted, slightly hurt look, was one that was half-heartedly put on and intended as a joke at best.

 

"The last ones were poisoned." The girl said, her eyes flicking to the cookies, she picked one up and turned it this way and that, before crushing it in between he fingers.

 

"Well, if you don't want to eat it you don't have to waste it either. Not everyone grows up with food so readily available, Eleanor Potter."

 

She gave him a rather unamused look before singing out, "Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink."

 

"Perhaps, but then, you're still here. If I had truly wanted you dead, little Eleanor, you would have been nothing more than a memory years ago."

 

Raised, disbelieving eyebrows, "Didn't you send Peter Pettigrew to assassinate me when I was an infant?"

 

"Ah, Peter, yes, his incompetence astounds me. All he had to do was kill a defenseless one-year-old child and he ended up somehow lighting himself and the house on fire and leaving you practically untouched." The dark lord sighed, Peter Pettigrew's failure still rankling over ten years after the fact, before regathering his focus and answering her question, "It would have been convenient, if you were dead, but it was not strictly necessary. After all, you're a little girl rather than a little boy. Neville Longbottom was not half so fortunate as you are."

 

After that they fell into an awkward silence, the girl not quite sure what to say or do since the food was most likely poisoned and she had nothing worth asking and the man's attention focused on something else.

 

Finally, irritation overcame the dark lord, and he spoke, "Where is your adoptive father? He's running late."

 

"Well, didn't you say you sent Uncle Sirius after him? That could take a pretty damn long time for him to deal with. Dad's notoriously incapable of handling Uncle Sirius, especially if I'm not there to mitigate the damage… I think he might actually have a man-crush on him, which I really don't get, because Uncle Sirius is three parts crazy." The girl said with a shrug, like these things couldn't be helped and the dark lord had no one to blame but himself.

 

"I did not send Sirius, I lured him, and it was to deal with his nuisance of a brother rather than Evans himself."

 

Again the girl shrugged, because this made no difference, either way Sirius met up not only with Regulus but also with Harry Evans.

 

"Right, because Uncle Regulus destroyed your evil soul locket… Which you still don't seem that upset over, by the way." The girl pointed out with narrowed eyes, but this had been a conversation long since covered, where the man had explained the point of having seven horcruxes and the idea of laying bait for particularly potent adversaries.

 

So instead of explaining why he was willing to sacrifice fractions of his soul he said, "I have others."

 

"It's your soul." The girl responded, with a shrug, and the unspoken words that if it was her soul she wouldn't be so careless with it.

 

"Why do you want to meet dad so much anyway? You could have just sent him a bloody email if you wanted to talk to him." The idea of Harry Evans, the nameless traveler, having an email account was a bit absurd to both of them but neither of them commented on it.

 

The man leaned back and considered the question, "I've wanted to meet Harry Evans since 1979."

 

"That's a long time to wait." The girl pointed out, well over ten years.

 

"Yes, it is, but there was never a good opportunity. In the middle of the revolution it would have been too dangerous and reckless not to mention strictly unnecessary. And afterwards the man pulled his disappearing act with you and became almost impossible to track down given how often you moved about the world. There was never a good time, at least, not until Regulus Black showed signs of cracking."

 

The girl leaned forward, a metaphorical lightbulb flickering on above her head, "Wait a minute, so Regulus dropping out of your cult, him going after your horcrux and then needing to go beg dad for help and bring dad to England… That was you? How? Why? Also, wait, why do you tell me these things? Does this mean you have to kill me?"

 

The man smirked at her, "I suppose I'll answer your last questions first. As I said before, if I needed you dead you would be dead, at one time your death was convenient but that time has more or less passed and I am now indifferent to your continued survival. Now, why I'm telling you, you are perhaps the only person I've found capable of appreciating this story."

 

"But I don't really appreciate it…" The girl pointed out, a hand over her heart as she earnestly explained, "I mean, if I was the evil sith emperor with a death star, I don't think I'd lay out bread crumbs for Darth Vader to find a way to assassinate me. That's one of those things you really want to avoid in your line of work."

 

"That was hideously muggle." The man sneered, his face twisted in disgust, but the girl didn't seem to mind this, "To be honest, I didn't think Regulus would find out about the horcruxes. He would have to get that information from Horace Slughorn or else realize it himself and neither of those paths are easy. It was extraordinarily unfortunate that he did find it out and more that he miraculously survived the cave's defenses but such is life."

 

"C'est la vie? That's your answer?" The girl asked dubiously.

 

"I'm very old, life is very boring, it's warped my worldview." This, apparently, was supposed to be a joke.

 

The girl didn't laugh.

 

The man sighed, his expression darkening momentarily, "Do you have any idea how boring it is to achieve all your ambitions so easily? For ten years I have run this country, reformed it in my own image. I have changed the entire Hogwarts curriculum, finally started settling the mudblood crisis, reformed the ministry itself, and it was all so easy."

 

He turned his sight towards the window, to the sight of England stretching out beyond it, "Should I invade France it will be the same story, should I conquer all of Europe just the same… I have seen my life and it is tedious beyond all imagining. Your adoptive father though…"

 

"There's no one quite like him." The girl finished for him.

 

"Just so."

 

"And you don't think he'll try to kill you?" The girl asked, "You are, after all, quite despicable."

 

"He hasn't before and besides I have his beloved daughter hostage."

 

The girl said nothing to this, but there was a flash in her green eyes, as if there was more to this story than she was willing to say or he was willing to hear. It was a nice story, his plan, but ultimately it wasn't reality.

 

She, of course, had made up her mind not to tell him this.

 

Her stomach growled and her eyes darted to the food once again but she made no movement towards them, instead she crossed her legs on the seat, "Would it seriously kill you to give me something to eat that wasn't poisoned?"

 

The lights flickered and then went out, the room grew cold, and both the girl and the man fell silent and began to pay closer attention to their altering surroundings. The man brought up his wand while the girls eyes traced the growing shadows for her father's form.

 

And around them, from every wall and crevice, there was Harry Evan's voice, "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…"

 

The dark lord paled, stood from his chair, and cast a powerful lumos to fight back the shadows, but the voice still sounded.

 

"…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"

 

"Dad? It's okay, you don't have to do the terrifying light show. I mean, you can if you want, but really… I'd just settle for a cheeseburger at this point." The girl said, but neither the voice of her father or the dark lord himself seemed willing to pay her any mind.

 

"…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not…"

 

Out of the shadows, out of nothingness itself, with a growing crown on his head Harry Evans stepped into the room and finished the prophecy, "… and either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives…"

 

The dark lord started laughing hysterically, "Oh, Harry Evans, you do not disappoint. Where did you hear that?"

 

"A long time ago in a galaxy far far away." The man replied but his expression remained unyielding and the shadows still swirled about him, his eyes landed on the girl, "I see you have kept my daughter more or less intact."

 

"Where are my manners? Please, sit Mr. Evans, we have much to discuss."

 

The man in black remained stationary, watched as Ellie walked slowly over to him, her eyes constantly darting back to the dark lord. The dark lord, too, watched and remained standing for a moment before taking a seat, putting on a show of being immune to the tension.

 

"Tell me, how did you manage to deal with Sirius Black so quickly? Dear Eleanor had a surprising lack of faith in your ability."

 

"You don't care then, about the prophecy?" The man asked, gripping Eleanor to his robes tightly, his eyes narrowed on the dark lord.

 

"Neville Longbottom is dead and Eleanor Potter is female; as far as I see it I no longer have cause for concern. If that truly is the end of the prophecy then I have killed him and thus I have survived. It has been ten years since I've thought to fear the killing blow of a sibyl's words." The dark lord offered Harry Evans a thin smile then, "I had heard you were an uncomfortably stiff and awkward man but strangely I could never picture it."

 

"And so you'll comfortably live as a tyrant for the rest of eternity?"

 

"And you, as a vagrant, for the rest of your existence." The dark lord smiled and then added, "You know, I was very close to recruiting you, after you stabbed Bellatrix through the heart."

 

"Were you?"

 

"A man of your talents is hard to find." The dark lord sighed, "Of course, a man of your talents is also hard to control, particularly one of your apathetic disposition. It's hard to blackmail a man who is willing to let everyone die around him for the sake of his ideals. Still, interesting, in your own incorruptible way."

 

"Not very interesting, at the end of things… To be honest, I'm more interested in your plans." Harry Evans shifted, pushing his daughter behind him, blocking her view of the dark lord.

 

"My plans?"

 

"What do you plan to do with France?"

 

"Invade it, of course, why else become an emperor?"

 

The visage of humanity dripped from Harry Evans features until nothing but Death remained inside of him, staring out at the last echoes of humanity in the galaxy.

 

"Then, Tom Marvolo Riddle, there is something I must confess." The room shrank, Death growing taller and more imposing as the walls caved in, "I once believed I was human and when I did I went by the form of Harry James Potter, son of James and Lily Potter, born on July 31st 1980. He was a boy who desperately tried to be unremarkable, small and nearsighted, but never quite managed it. Because you see, it was prophesized by the sibyl, that he would do great and terrible things. But, more importantly for you, that he would destroy the dark lord with a power the man could not begin to imagine."

 

The man blew through his fingers and before him Tom Marvolo Riddle scattered into a handful of dust, light returned to the room, the walls to their original position, and then there was only the girl Ellie and her adoptive father standing in the living room of a palace.

 

"Holy shit."

 

* * *

 

 

July 31st 1993.

 

"And then dad rode off into the sunset, having terrifyingly lectured the dark lord to death, and didn't tell anyone his name… I would watch that badly dubbed movie."

 

Eleanor Lily Potter, now thirteen years old and woefully lacking in traditional education, celebrated her birthday with her father as well as their guest Regulus Black in a cheap teriyaki restaurant in the middle of an unremarkable muggle English town.

 

Regulus Black had not adjusted to the muggle cuisine well and after taking a bite had deeply regretted it.

 

"No, seriously, you make the action scene between you and crazy Uncle Sirius a little longer and with more kung-fu, maybe evil shogun Voldemort shows up a little more, and it would be the greatest worst Asian film I'd ever hypothetically see!" To emphasize her point, the girl waved her arms about dramatically unconcerned for their surroundings, and shouted one last, "Ever!"

 

"How is England, Regulus?" The man in black was in the guise of Harry Evans, unremarkably dressed, thick glasses obscuring his eyes.

 

Regulus thought it almost made him look more out of place than before but something in him hadn't allowed him to tell Evans that.

 

"I wouldn't know; I haven't been back too often since… It could be better; it could be worse. Lucius is minister, and while he's hopelessly corrupt and self-serving he's not… insane."

 

"If you want to change, you will, if you don't, you won't." Evans said, smiling, before adding, "These things have a way of sorting themselves out."

 

"And if they don't?"

 

If Voldemort or a man like him appeared again, was the unasked question, but Evans didn't falter as he answered or even show signs of being disturbed.

 

"If they don't I'll lend a hand where I can."

 

Regulus visibly sagged with relief before moving onto his next pressing question, "Good… And Sirius?"

 

"I've decided to give Sirius something of a break, I think he needs time to figure his life out…" Which meant that Harry Evans had not seen him since and appeared to harbor no desire to see him, a sentiment that Regulus, and Eleanor Potter seemed to share.

 

"He needs buckets of therapy." Ellie scoffed, stabbing ineffectually at a piece of chicken with wooden chop sticks.

 

"Wizards don't really believe in therapy. They see it as a woefully muggle invention." Evans clarified.

 

"Doesn't mean he doesn't need it."

 

Regulus smiled at the pair, ignoring the bizarre thought that these were perhaps the only friends he had left in the world, and that buried in Harry Evans there was good somewhere. Instead he stood, "Well, I'm glad you're doing well, but I should get going. It was good to see you… keep in touch. And, happy birthday, Ellie."

 

"And a very happy unbirthday to you, Mr. Black." Ellie responded with a cheerful grin.

 

The pair watched as Regulus made to exit the restaurant, and as he opened the door and the bell chimed above him, Ellie called back to him.

 

"Oh, wait, don't you want to know what it's called?"

 

"What what's called?" He said, turning back one final time to look at her, take in the sight of the girl leaning eagerly forward across the table.

 

"The samurai movie of your quest."

 

It wasn't a question of whether he did or didn't or if he even understood because she answered it anyway, grinning her fox like grin.

 

"The Return of the King."

**Author's Note:**

> Someone asked for a fic where instead of entering at the start of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" Death steps off the train earlier, meets James and Lily, and ends up the adoptive father for Lily. So we have this.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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